LUComm 197 in Summer 2021
A six-week learning module, which encompassed everything from photography to podcasts.
Walking into Lehigh University’s Mobile and Social Media Storytelling course, I was excited but also curious.
I took up this course because I intend on majoring in marketing. What is marketing without storytelling?
With multiple platforms for promoting products and services today, apps and websites available on mobile phones will be most viewed. Keeping all of this in mind, I couldn’t think of a better way to make use of my time this summer.
I came into this class with two skills — photography and some amount of writing — among the many this class had to offer. Making documentaries and podcasts were miles away from my comfort zone when I first started. As it turned out, I began to enjoy making them both.
I always shied away from anything related to video making, from taking them to compiling them. I never gave myself a chance to try. Although, I love watching videos, which shouldn’t be surprising for a Gen-Z, I seldom found making them interesting.
Having a steady platform (like a tripod or a pile of books) isn’t the most important thing in photography. While photographers use tripods on various occasions, if they were confident enough to just go on with their camera, they usually would do just fine. On the other hand, videos could look highly unprofessional without a steady platform underneath the camera. By nature, humans can’t be as steady as a tripod: their hands shake enough to show on the camera. Even the slightest shake can ruin the video.
While learning to position the camera/phone for a video was just the first step, I knew far less going forward. Medium, wide-angle, close-up, were all terms that I associate with photography. Learning them as a process of taking videos, while having a storyline in mind, was new. Being an amateur, video making did scare me initially, but once I made my first documentary, it turned out to be simpler than I anticipated. The time involved and the attention to intricate details did take me by surprise.
Before this class, I have had nothing to do with the production of a podcast. Although we had just one assignment on making a podcast in this class, it was a fun experience. The nuances of voice modulation, preparation with or without a script, and not sounding over-rehearsed were all new to me. While it was a short and simple assignment, I learned a lot from it.
Being a wildlife photographer, I never took interest in still-life photography. While I pondered giving it a try a couple of times before, I never got the chance to have a still-life shoot. This class encouraged me to try different avenues of photography. While photography by itself can be a very creative field, still-life photography added to the creativity.
Of the many new learning avenues in this class, Twitter was my most challenging. I had never scrolled through a Twitter page before, let alone had a Twitter account. To find worthy content to post was a major challenge for me. On other social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat, there is no commitment for a timeline. Hence, posting relevant content happened to be crucial on Twitter. Getting accustomed to Twitter was quite the learning curve for me.
I’m really glad I took up this class over this summer. I wasn’t just working on something productive, I enjoyed every bit of it and learned a lot from this course.
