What Do You Guys Think?

After several weeks and several pleasant car drives out to lovely Harrisburg, Missouri, I have completed the five pieces that make up my first multimedia project as a journalist. It was a profile of the Muno family and their farm and business, Goatsbeard Farm. The Muno’s own an 80-acre farm in Harrisburg, Missouri, where they raise animals, produce and sell goats’ cheese, and raise a lovely family. I truly enjoyed getting to know the Munos and telling their story.

This project also helped me learn that I’m not the writing-only journalistic snob I previously thought I was. It was a great experience getting to tell these stories through media I had never used before to any great extent. It was certainly a challenge learning to use the new equipment and having to change my perspective and practices as a journalist to tell a story in a different and more visual way. It was exciting to learn that I really, really, really enjoyed taking photographs and putting together photojournalism pieces. It was even more exciting to learn that I wasn’t awful at it.

Ken Muno, owner and operator of Goatsbeard Farm, interacts with his herd of nearly 50 goats on Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2013, on his 80-acre farm in Harrisburg, Mo. Each goat has its own name and is part of a line of goats with similarly themed names.

Muno cracks a smile on Friday, Sept. 13, 2013, while brushing off a wheel of goat cheese inside his farm’s Dairy. Muno and his staff spend two full days each week processing their goats’ milk into artisanal goat cheese.

Keaton, one of two bucks who make their home at Goatsbeard Farm, peers through the fence of his enclosure on Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2013. Keaton and his fellow buck, Squire, are responsible for fathering many of the goats in farm’s herd.

It was fun to piece together an audio interview that had to stand alone as its own story. Doing an interview that you will later quote and paraphrase as part of a larger story is a completely different animal than knowing that your subject’s answers on their own have to be able to tell the story. I can’t go in and lead the story and provide context which can be frightening. But I really enjoyed it and I think it came out well.

My co-favorite piece was my audio slideshow which combined a couple dozen still images I had taken over a few weeks and interviews with Ken and Jenn Muno, the owners of Goatsbeard. The piece walked the viewer through the Muno’s cheese making process all the way from raising the goats to selling the cheese at market. I loved seeing so many of my images turn out well and see the pairing of the images and the Munos’ interviews tell their story.

http://web.missouri.edu/rblrk6/2150/Levi_Audio_Slideshow/

I dipped my toe into the ocean of video with my short video piece. I focused this piece on the Muno’s 12-year-old son Peter and his role on the farm. Working with video was a whole new ballgame and it certainly had a learning curve in terms of setting up and getting the shots I needed. It’s clear that this was my first foray into video, but I’m still proud of the piece and I think it turned out well.

The final piece I did was my broadcast-style video where I got to/had to interject my own voice and narrate the story, in addition to interviews and b-roll. This is my other co-favorite and I’m really happy with how it turned out.

This really was a great experience and I’m excited to move on to my group final project and continue and improve upon the skills I gained covering the Munos.

Until next time.