The Economy Crunch: A multimedia website devoted to the economy and what we eat

What we eat speaks volumes about who we are. Diet can be a reflection of one's unique tastes, economic class or personal style. It's hard to stay true to your diet, whatever it may be, when money is tight and buying everything you want or need is no longer an option. The Economy Crunch website is a multimedia Masters thesis project. The aim of the project was to create a full website devoted to how the state of the economy affects what people eat as well as what people are doing to eat well during a recession.;The website is informative yet fun to navigate through and interactive. The site combines text, photography and video story formats as well as different multimedia and online story telling tools like Vuvox an interactive collage tool, Google maps and information graphics. The website is located at http://www.jennharris.net/economycrunch/. The homepage consists a story carousel with four main featured stories, meant to give insight into how different groups are dealing with the economy in terms of diet. There is also a link to a recipe section, a cheap eats section and a page devoted to the Banh Mi sandwich. These pages are meant to give helpful information regarding eating on a budget.;The first story is The Urban Garden, about how Mirabelle restaurant in Los Angeles is saving money and keeping green by growing most of their produce organically at the Solano Community garden in Los Angeles. The story consists of two videos shot and edited by me, using iMovie. The videos were put into a Flash player, which is how they are presented on the web. The first video features Mirabelle restaurant manager Michael Duddie, who speaks about the start of his restaurant supported agriculture movement, where restaurants grow their own produce in gardens to reduce carbon footprints and save money. Duddie also gives a sort of walking tour of the different parts of the garden. Los Angeles Garden Council Director Al Renner also speaks in the video regarding the garden.;In the second video, Duddie introduces viewers to composting with a demonstration. This story features two extra story elements in addition to the videos. The first is a Google map with community gardens in Los Angeles and the second is an information graphic, built using Photoshop and Dreamweaver. The information graphic is a step-by-step demonstration, with picture icons, of how community supported agriculture works from your home, to the farm, back to your home. The second feature story located in the carousel is Chefs in the Classroom. This story is about the Los Angeles Unified School District's Network for a Healthy California program Chefs in the Classroom. This program sends professional chefs to schools to teach the students and teachers how to cook healthful food.;The third story in the carousel is about a woman who completed a food stamp challenge, why she did it and what her experience was like. Her seven-day task is chronicled along with the difficulties she faced. The article focuses on the challenge to stay healthy on a limited budget such as the allotment given to a person participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP. In this article, readers hear from Katie Evarts, the woman who completed the challenge, Cecilia Chan, Resident Dietician at the Huntington Memorial Hospital and Regan Hoper, Public Affairs Specialist for the USDA's Food and Nutrition Services.;The fourth article is a broadcast television package on the state of the wine industry and how the failing economy is actually good for wine consumers. I shot, edited and did the voice overs for the package using Avid NewsCutter as the editing software. In the package, viewers hear from two wine boutique owners regarding their wine selection and how the economy is affecting their business as well as what consumers should look for in terms of good buys. A wine enthusiast is also featured speaking about her consumer habits and how she is adjusting to her new budget. This article features one multimedia element other than the video. A Google map displays a list of wine bars in Los Angeles. There is also a list of links to wine recommendations.;In addition to the four featured stories, there are five other pages with content that will help people eat well during a recession. The first is a recipe section with one recipe highlighted as well as a recipe box of archived recipe articles. All recipes were written with health and a budget in mind and come from my weekly food column called The Food Chronicles, written for USC Annenberg's digital news publication Neon Tommy.;The entire website was coded by hand using Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Flash and BBedit. All video, Vuvox collages and information graphics were built by me for the website. All photographs were taken by me unless otherwise credited by Flickr Creative Commons. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...