SCD IST 110H

Personal videos have become very popular through the Internet medium via the popularity of such video sharing sites as YouTube. For this assignment, our team had to create a video that would eventually be posted on YouTube for the world to see. We decided to create a Celebrity Jeopardy parody, much like the Saturday Night Live skit.

However, unlike the skit, our video would focus on topics that we as a team learned while taking IST 110H. Making a video requires a team effort as our group exemplified throughout the creation of our video.

Although we did work as a team, individuals did have their own responsibilities. Corinne Bernstiel was largely responsible for her character, the Nittany Lion. The Nittany Lion is the mascot of Pennsylvania State University. To accurately portray the Nittany Lion, Corinne made a costume. For her costume, Corinne bought sweatpants and made a Nittany Lion mask. Corinne was also responsible for writing the section of the script about social networking.

The entire premise of our video, Celebrity Jeopardy, was D.J. Lingelbach’s idea. He showed the team a video on YouTube, and we were instantly sold on the concept. D.J. was responsible for his character, Joe Paterno, who is the legendary coach of the Pennsylvania State University football team. To accurately portray Coach Paterno, D.J. taped his glasses, wore a dress shirt and tie, and also brought a coat similar to what Coach Paterno himself wears during game day. D.J. was also responsible for writing the section of the script about blogging.

Garrett Miller was responsible for his character, movie star Sir Sean Connery. For his role, Garrett dressed in a black t-shirt with a black suit jacket and mastered the Connery accent. Garrett was also responsible for writing the section of the script about Second Life. Due to his experience with editing videos, Garrett served as the chief camera man and served as a director during the taping of our video. He also edited the video.

Steven Dodge was responsible for his character, the host of Celebrity Jeopardy Alex Trebek. For his role, Steven dressed in a blazer, tie, and dress pants with a fake grey wig and moustache. In addition to writing the questions about video and imaging for the script, Steven also compiled the different sections of the script and made the scenes into a cohesive script. Steven also was in charge of sending out emails to members of the group alerting them of meeting times and decisions we made as well as writing the final document for the video project.

The following is the script we used for our video:

Celebrity Jeopardy

Cast of Characters:
Alex Trebek: Steven Dodge
Nittany Lion: Corinne Bernstiel
Joe Paterno: D.J. Lingelbach
Sean Connery: Garrett Miller

Scene 1 – The Introduction
Alex: Welcome back to Celebrity Jeopardy. Before we start our Double Jeopardy round, I would like to remind our contestants to once again silence their cell phones.
(View of the contestants: Nittany Lion and Connery silence their cell phones while JoePa puts his old school phone away)
Alex: That said let’s take a look at the scores. We have a barn burner on our hands as Sean Connery is in last place with -$300,272.
Connery: You will rue the day you crossed me, Trebek!
Alex: Legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno is in second with -$1,000 dollars.
JoePa: uh ah uh…….. great football team
Alex: And with a commanding lead of $0 is the Nittany Lion because he has not buzzed in yet this game.
Nittany Lion: (points at Trebek and nods his head approvingly)
Alex: Well said, Mr. Lion. Let’s take a look at the final board. And the categories are: Potent Potables, Flickring Tubes, Blog Women, Social Networking, Not Your First Life, Potpourri, and Blog Applications. Mr. Lion is in the lead, so we will start with you.

Scene 2 – Danah Boyd
Nittany Lion: (points, claps, shakes head)
Alex: Blog Women for $400. This researcher, from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is a well-known woman who writes about the social impacts of Web 2.0 on her blog. Mr. Paterno?
JoePa: Well, ya know, she has a pretty good blogging site, and ya know I think that she says a lot of good stuff cuz it’s a pretty good blogging site.
Alex: That is incorrect, Mr. Paterno. Mr. Lion?
Nittany Lion: (scratches ears, claps, points, etc)
(buzz buzz)
Alex: Wonderful. That is incorrect. The answer of course is Danah Boyd. She is a Ph.D. candidate at the iSchool at the University of California-Berkley. She is most famously known for her theory that certain class divisions exist between Facebook and MySpace users. Danah Boyd also….
(Shows Connery and JoePa sleeping)
Alex: Let’s just move on, the board is still yours, Mr. Lion.

Scene 3 – RSS feeds
Nittany Lion: (scratches ears, claps, points)
Alex: Blog Applications? For $800?
Nittany Lion: (clap, points, nods head)
Alex: Okay… and the answer is: These are the letters that represent the application that tells users that there are new updates for a blog… (contestants look confused) It’s called “Real Simple Syndication”… (contestants still confused) That’s Real with an R, Simple with an S, and Syndication with an S. What are the letters?? Someone… anyone?
(contestants shown with puzzled look)
(buzz, buzz)
Alex: And the show has reached a new low.

Scene 4 – Avatars
Alex: Since this is going nowhere, Joe Paterno please select a category.
JoePa: Uh, Not Your First Life, for $400.
Alex: This is your virtual "identity", how people see you in online worlds.
Connery: I saw your mother's online world, Trebek!
Alex: Lovely. That is incorrect. Mr. Lion?
Nittany Lion: (dances)
(buzz, buzz)
Alex: No, the correct answer is avatar. Neal Stephenson was the first one to coin the term avatar in his novel Snow Crash, and ever since, the term avatar has been used to call a user’s 2D, 3D, or textual self on the Internet. To all of the contestants, I remind you to please phrase your answer in the form a question. Mr. Paterno, you still have control of the board. Please select a category.

Scene 5 - Istania
JoePa: Um, same category, um ah, well ….
Alex: Not Your First Life for $800, then. This is the name of Pennsylvania State University’s College of Information Sciences and Technology Virtual "Island" on Second Life.
JoePa: What is weelllll you see the IST program here is a pretty good program, we got a good thing going, we got some good kids, you know, and these kids are using these computer things you know right, and we-
(buzz buzz)
Alex: I'm sorry, Mr. Paterno, but you're out of time.
Connery: What is Cuba?
Alex: No, that is incorrect. Mr. Lion? Mr. Lion?
Nittany Lion: (doing one armed push ups)
JoePa and Connery: One, Two…
(buzz buzz)
Alex: Time is up. The correct answer is Istania. Second Life is an Internet-based virtual world launched in 2003 and developed by Linden Research, Inc. Pennsylvania State University is not the only university with property in Second Life. Institutions such as Harvard and Princeton also have property in Second Life. The board is still yours, Mr. Paterno.

Scene 6 – Tagging
JoePa: I’ll take uh Flickring Tubes for $400.
Alex: Flickring Tubes for $400. This is how you tag some form multimedia.
Connery: (walks up to the Nittany Lion) Tag! You’re it!
(A game of tag erupts between the contestants)
Connery: No tag backs! No tag backs!
Alex: Freeze! That is quite enough, gentlemen. That is incorrect, Mr. Connery. The correct answer is one tags some form of multimedia by labeling the form of multimedia through using popular, common, or descriptive words in the text field provided by the web service. This is done so users can easily find either their own multimedia or that created or posted by others. It is still your board, Mr. Paterno.

Scene 7 - Embedding
JoePa: Um ah same thing for twice as much.
Alex: Flickring Tubes for $800. This is how you embed video from YouTube. Mr. Paterno?
JoePa: Well, there are two ways. The easy way and the hard way. (throws coat on the floor)
Nittany Lion: (Claps, raises arms and points his index fingers to the sky)
Alex: No.
JoePa: What is the easy way……?
Alex: No, Mr. Paterno. That is incorrect. Mr. Connery.
Connery: I embedded your mother last night, Trebek.
Alex: That is disturbing and incorrect, Mr. Connery. Once again, please answer in the form of a question. Mr. Lion?
Nittany Lion: (does some weird interruptive dance)
Alex: Judges. Wow. Astonishing. Simply Astonishing. The Nittany Lion is correct. Beneath the video on the YouTube website there is a field where the HTML code is located to embed the chosen video. Through copying this code and pasting it into a blog for example, others can see the video outside of YouTube.
JoePa: What?! (goes and argues with the judges) Look at the instant replay! There is no way!
Alex: Mr. Paterno, back to your podium. You cannot challenge that because it is a judgment call. The ruling on the field stands. It looks as though we have just enough time for one more question before Final Jeopardy. Mr. Lion, since you answered correctly, you control the board.

Scene 8 – Social Networking
Nittany Lion: (does what the Nittany Lion does)
Alex: Social Networking for $400 then. A social networking service of course focuses on the building and verifying of online social networks for communities of people who share interests and activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others, and which necessitates the use of software. This is a social networking site. Mr. Paterno?
JoePa: You see, Anthony Morelli is a good quarterback and….
Alex: That is incorrect. Mr. Connery?
Connery: MyFace.com
Alex: No, Mr. Connery. In fact, that site does not even exist.
Connery: It does so. Look it up, you sissy boy.
Alex: Judges… My sincerest apologies Mr. Connery. It appears as though MyFace.com is in fact a website. Very good, Mr. Connery. Let’s take a look at the homepage.
(a display of a hilarious webpage is shown)
(buzz buzz)

Scene 9 – Final Jeopardy
Alex: Amazing. That is incorrect, Mr. Connery. And it’s time for Final Jeopardy. This is a kind of sociotechnical system. A socio-technical system is an intellectual tool to help us recognize patterns in the way technology is used and produced. The technology is…..
(shot of confused contestants)
Alex: You know what, (rips the card), this is way too hard. Here is the Final Jeopardy question. Write down a website. Any website at all. In fact, I will get you started, www. Blank .com. Just fill in the blank.
(music)
Alex: Okay. Time is up. Let’s see what you all have written. Mr. Paterno, you wrote some xs, and you bet some os and arrows. Great work, sir.
JoePa: Success with honor.
Alex: Mr. Lion, let’s see what you put down. You outlined your hand. Our wager: Your other hand. It would be wise not to quit your day job, Mr. Lion.
Nittany Lion: (does what the Nittany Lion does)
Alex: And finally, we have Mr. Connery. This should have been easy for you as you already answered with a website before. Good Lord, you wrote down bebo.com. Phenomenal, are we recording this? I am in shock because that answer is correct. Let’s see what you wagered. Your wager: poophead.
Connery: (laughs obnoxiously)
Alex: Proud day for you and your family. That is it for this edition Celebrity Jeopardy. Once again, charity will go home empty handed. Good night.
(contestants lead by the Nittany Lion in a we are penn state cheer)

After filming our video, the next step was to edit and create our finished product. We used VirtualDub 1.6.15 to capture the video, and Adobe Premiere Professional 2.0 to do all the editing. We chose these products for our familiarity with them, and for the fact that Premiere is a very powerful, professional video editing utility. We then edited the video on our Lenovo X61 Ultraportable laptop, rather than our desktop, due to our laptop's superior Core 2 Duo dual-core processor. We also used various online resources to find sound effects for the video, and used our prior knowledge of video editing to help produce the final result.

The ultimate goal of this video assignment was to create a video to post on YouTube. In order to post on YouTube, the team had to register for an account. To sign up for an account, we first had to visit the YouTube homepage.

After visiting the website, we clicked on sign up, and then we filled out the account information below.

After we filled out the account information by providing our email address and selecting a YouTube username and password, we then received an email to confirm our YouTube account.

After opening the email, we were able to view our account.

Under Videos, we clicked the button labeled upload new video to post our video on YouTube.

We decided to call our video “IST Celebrity Jeopardy.” We decided to describe our video as: “Celebrity Jeopardy parody for IST 110H course at Penn State University. Topics covered in Celebrity Jeopardy were the topics covered in IST 110H.” We decided to tag our video with the following tags that likely viewers would search for: “IST”, “Celebrity Jeopardy”, “PSU”, “Penn State”, “Team Multivac”, and “Information Sciences and Technology.”

Throughout the course of making our video, we encountered many problems. One problem was who was going to play each character. Our solution to this problem was based on the team member’s desire to play the character as well as his or her ability to. During filming, we encountered many unexpected problems. For example, we found out that our script provided us with too much material. Therefore, we had to cut out scenes 4 and 8 and the parts of other scenes in order to make our video length’s between 5 – 8 minutes. Another problem during filming was the location. Initially, we weren’t sure whether or not to tape in the cybertorium, the College of Information Sciences and Technology Building’s auditorium, or classroom 110 IST. We concluded that 110 IST would provide the technological feel we were looking for as well the privacy we needed. Although 110 IST was not booked for any classes during the taping, we still had to deal with interruptions, but we were patient and posted a sign on the door alerting intruders that a taping was in process.

In order to complete this assignment well, we needed many resources. YouTube provided us with many ideas for our video after watching many clips of the Celebrity Jeopardy skit from Saturday Night Live and also gave us a forum to post our final product. The course material posted on ANGEL, Pennsylvania State University’s course management system or simply the online classroom, provided us with the content used for the questions asked by Alex Trebek in our video. The Information Sciences and Technology Building provided us a place to tape our video in classroom 110 IST. For the taping equipment such as the camera and the tripod, we used the university’s Media Technology Support Services, located in the Willard Building. The camera we used is a Sony HDR-003 High Definition digital video camera. For editing, we used Adobe Premiere Professional 2.0. With the aid of all of these sources, our video became a reality.

After completing this assignment, we learned the dedication, diligence, and team work required to make a video. We as a team became more familiar with YouTube as we became not only consumers but creators. We participated in the process that defines Web 2.0: the posting of user generated content. It will be interesting to see how well our YouTube video does. Will we become famous or be a part of the forgotten?

Here it is: