The first videos from students in the new Video Storytelling for the Web class are up and running.

The course, taught for the first time this semester by multimedia journalist Bob Sacha, focuses on non-narrated, character-driven visual narratives. In other words, “there is no reporter with a microphone,” Sacha said.

Sacha said he was very impressed by the quality of these initial efforts, which had to profile an individual. “Everyone with a phone has an HD video camera, but not everyone can tell a compelling visual story. That’s what we focus on.”

Here’s a sampling of the students’ work: