Digital Storytelling Basics

In the face of tuition increases and lean economic times, many students turn to affordable housing such as cooperatives when looking for a place to live. A proposed change to the MF-4 zone, which includes West Campus, could slow down and even hinder some affordable student housing from being built in the future.

Proposed by the Central Austin Neighborhood Planning Advisory Committee, or CANPAC, the proposal would make group residential properties in the MF-4 housing zone conditional, which means they would be required to obtain permits from the Planning Commission on a case-by-case basis.

"What they want to do is to make a decision that would basically make you have to get permits to build cooperatives or fraternity and sorority buildings," Cheyenne Dansby, Taos Cooperative Board Representative, said. "It's a really difficult thing to do because it takes years and lots of money, and co-ops don't have a lot of money anyway."

Current group housing properties, including existing cooperatives as well as Greek houses, would be exempt from the change, but if they wish to expand or remodel in the future they may be forced to obtain permits for their current property as well. It has been said that the existence of high-density student housing lowers property value in the area for single-family residences.

The decision, which is to be voted on by Austin City Council, has been pushed back several times for a multitude of reasons. The current vote is tentatively set for December, but co-op residents plan to request a delay until February in order to allow students to participate at a time when school is in session.

Representatives from CANPAC declined to comment on the decision.

Video Story Telling Project

Garrett Callahan
Michael Liang
Faria Akram

There was a problem between our camera and FinalCutPro. Our settings were fine when we shot, however FinalCutPro does not recognize some type of settings and also does not let the user know this. We edited our entire project in FinalCutPro without knowing that in the end it would cause multiple problems in playing. We asked both Angela and the lab assistant to help us, and they did so multiple times, however both came to the limits of their knowledge and this is the best we were able to get after working on the video for several hours.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cnuv-VzSBek&feature=youtu.be

Sorority stereotypes news video

Since Greek life is so prominent on the UT campus, Anna Fata, Victoria Garcia and Ryan Haddox decided to investigate some sorority stereotypes.

First Time Voters

First Time Voters

Christy
Will
Darren

This year’s election brought a whole group of new voters out to the polls. New voters express their opinions about their first time experience as voters and discuss their thoughts over how much impact they feel their vote made, especially in a predominantly red state like Texas. We find students’ real feelings on the voting process and the importance of getting the vote out!

First Time Voters

Jasmin, Tiffany, Minza Christmas Video

While some establishments choose to decorate for Christmas from mid November or early December, others decorate for the holiday at the end of October and early November. Whether they are aware of it or not, these decisions affect their customers in different ways.

Some may be turned off by the festive cups Starbucks offers at the beginning of November. Others find joy in the Christmas light displays at Mozart’s.

RTF Junior Alex Michaels feels that the holiday season has been tainted by consumerism. A frequent Starbucks studier, Michaels said the festive cups bother him because they are sold to customers so early. He said this promotes a sense of commerciality instead of true holiday spirit.

Aliya Ispahany, a dedicated Mozart’s patron, disagrees with Michaels. Ispahany said though the decorations are in fact set up early, it only adds to the Christmas spirit. She said the early set up encourages her to feel excited with holiday spirit, not consumerism.

Though members of the Austin community share conflicting views regarding the proper time to decorate for and celebrate Christmas, one thing remains certain: it is apparent from these interviews that holiday overload either enhances or hinders business.