On September 16th, Minuteman Marching Band Director George N. Parks passed away on a trip with the band to a game in Michigan. On Friday, September 3rd, George N. Parks talked to journalism students as part of their media package for the Multimedia Bootcamp.

This blog post was written by Kelli Correia and Maria Uminski. They also produced the video.

Excitement, nervousness, intimidation and curiosity sums up the initial feelings we felt as we first walked into the official Journalism Multimedia Bootcamp room. The first day each of us had to give an elevator pitch to the class. Little did we know, we had to perform it twice. Once to the class, and the second in front of a camera. The biggest fear most people seem to have is public speaking. In this case, it was speaking in front of the camera that was the most intimidating.
We both looked forward to the next day. We arrived and immediately started brainstorming our story ideas. The project we decided on was to cover the marching band’s building project.
We had the pleasure of interviewing various members of the band along with the band director, George N. Parks. Using audio interviews was new to the two of us, but by the end of the day we had adapted to using this technology. After talking with all of them we began to see the excitement they all have for this ongoing project that according to Parks they have been hoping to do for 14 years.
In the end, we learned a lot about the new technology in the world of journalism as well as the upcoming building for the UMass Amherst Marching Band. It was an exciting experience.
Totally worth it!
We learned so much and feel prepared for the upcoming year.