WKs 4, 5 & 6 Project A Production & Post (Schedule & interim deadlines)

Well done, you have researched and pre-produced your Story/Project A – now it’s time to get into the field and give it your best shot! You should be working largely independently but you can also contact us with questions or if you run into any problems on the road. Bear in mind, things never go quite as planned and sometimes they take a very different direction. That’s fine and a natural part of reporting, we have to adjust our assumptions to the reality on the ground. If things change dramatically from your original plan keep us updated.

  • For non-urgent non-official quick questions use Wechat message, we’ll aim to reply promptly but it might be worth checking technical questions in the group chat as peers may be able to help out too.
  • For non-urgent official correspondence use email and be sure to ass your name and student number. Our office days are Monday and Tuesday and we’ll respond then.
  • For anything urgent, call or Wechat Sharron, Rongfei or Zhangshufang.

Schedule:

  • T2WK 4: 28th Jan – Production & post-production 1
  • Spring festival holiday 4th – 16th Feb – Relax and enjoy!!!
  • T2WK 5: 18th Feb – Production & post-production 2
  • T2WK 6: 15th Feb – Production & post-production 3
  • March 3rd Final Deadline for Story Project A & Production Brief
  • T2WK 7: 4th March – Reading Week & Preparation for Intensive 2. Please view Multimediatrain.com – All of the ‘Short News’ section
  • T2WK 8 & 9 11th to 22nd March Intensive 2.2
  • Holiday Week / Optional tutorials
  • T2WK 10 1st April – starting Pre-production project B

For Story/Project A there are a couple of fixed interim deadlines:

  • 1) Monday 18th Feb – Informal Wechat tutorials with Sharron or Rongfei.
  • Please be prepared to give us an update of your work to date. We’ll need to know in clear and concise terms what you have achieved and any problems you are having. If you have something to show us that’s even better.
  • 2) Monday 25th Feb – Interim draft deadline for your multimedia story or project.
  • Upload media assets online and embed them in your story/project URL. *
  • Here is an example of the kind of thing we expect to see: https://youtu.be/5-YfV9m9ES0
  • Please prepare your materials well. Prepare the following:
    – An edited selection of the photos you have taken
    – A short rough edit video, with English subtitles or a typed and printed script
    – If you are writing a feature text, prepare a summary outline with a clear story arc. If you are approaching the text in a different way, give us a sense of things in a summary outline.
    – Your multimedia platform URL, which you will already have started to prepare. Try to give us a sense of the structure, layout, and design you want to achieve and use placeholders for assets that you haven’t yet created if needed.
    – A CLEAR outline of how you will spend the editing week and what you will be working on.
  • Finally, copy edit your English. To be blunt – If your English is poor, we will not review your work (it’s a waste of our time and effort) and you will lose valuable feedback. We are here to review your journalism, not your English.
  • *NOTE: Due to the diverse approaches, students will be working in different ways – use your common sense, it doesn’t matter if you don’t have every single one of the assets listed above but you should have a few key things in place for us to see.  Aim to get tutors the best presentation of your project to date. The more we see the better we can feedback.
  • We will feedback via email/tutorial. We will send out an email thread before the deadline for you to reply to with links of your assets / URLs. (Do not send folders that I have to download – we won’t do this).

  • Before your final deadline submission:
  • Please make sure you have gone through some basic editing steps and of course that you have thoroughly gone through the Critiquing Multimedia checklist with a peer proofreading & editing partner. Any text needs to be thoroughly proofread to good standard English. If your English is poor on your final submission, you can expect to fail. This includes written work for text, video subtitles or infographics).