This tutorial was written by Jeremy Rue but comes courtesy of Jane Stevens and the Ventura Country Star.
Introduction
One of the roadblocks to doing Web-centric, or multimedia, reporting is assembling the content into a well-designed story shell. Most reporters aren't designers, and there's not enough time in the day for a news organization's graphic designers to design every daily or short feature multimedia story. Because of this, news organizations haven't institutionalized Web-centric stories -- they've relegated them to special projects and defaulted to using slide shows or videos for daily or short features, which aren't always the best ways to tell a story.
The reporters at the Ventura County Star faced this issue in 2006, when that organization decided to begin making the transition to a Web-centric newsroom and train all of its reporters and editors (who wanted to) how to do Web-centric stories. For the first four months, they used a very loose template developed by Jane Stevens and Valerie Krist, a graphic designer who teaches at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. The reporters were free to play around with the template.
Then the reporters and Stevens sat down and storyboarded six different templates that could accommodate 70 to 80 percent of the breaking news, daily and feature stories they were doing. Val Krist turned the scribbled storyboards into beautiful templates. Jeremy Rue simplified the back-end and wrote up tutorials for their use.
And here they are: "open-source" Flash templates in which you can easily swap out images, videos and audio. We encourage you to download these templates. They're FREE to use. Graphic designers can add a news organization's logo, and begin modifying the templates for a news organization's "look" while maintaining their basic structure and function developed by the reporters. (Flash 8 or CS authoring program is required to edit these templates.)
We're teaching participants in our multimedia reporting workshops how to use these templates. They're amazed at how easy it is to do Web-centric stories, and at the versatility of the templates. They're taking templates home with them to use and to adapt in their news organizations.
(Template previews have been reduced slightly for viewing on this page. Not actual size)
Four section War Template
This template has four sections and a home section that can be viewed by clicking on the top banner of any inside page. It is very image heavy, and would work great with stories that contain lots of visuals. The inside sections can be replaced with FLV videos (Flash videos) or SoundSlides projects. Download the .fla for this template right here.
Three section bottom navigation template
This template has three sections and a home button, which can be used to access the opening page. This template requires one main image on the front, and images for each of the buttons. The inside stories can be FLV video (flash video) or SoundSlides projects. Download the .fla for this template right here.
Three predominant sections template
This template has three sections which are largely featured on the home section. It is primarily designed for features on three individuals, but can be modified to accomodate a number of story types. The three front images should be vertical and consistent. The inside stories can be FLV video (flash video) or SoundSlides projects. Download the .fla for this template right here.
1)Ashley Bowser, February 25, 2008 at 7:52 p.m.
[Link]
I am working with Flash 6 - and I was wondering if you might have some templates available in that version that I might be able to take a look at. Thanks!
Comments
1) Ashley Bowser, February 25, 2008 at 7:52 p.m. [Link]
I am working with Flash 6 - and I was wondering if you might have some templates available in that version that I might be able to take a look at. Thanks!
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