Critique of another student’s Soundslides

Spread Out: Forming the UF experience with the Policy Debate Squad.
I think that this Soundslide tells a story, especially with the photos. There’s emotion and action in the photographs and in the nat sot, which sweeps the viewer along with the story of the policy debaters. I’d like the actual profile of the girl speaking to tell a little more of a story, maybe about herself, especially because the audio ends with how policy debate “made” UF for her.

While simplistic, I enjoyed the introduction in the audio to the girl who was interviewed. (I used it myself.) It offered immediate gratification and was very clear. I wish the first photo, though, would have been of just her. And I also think it should have been her more actively involved in a debate or studying for one. I love the photo itself, but the introduction is about her and her definition of debate, so I thought the first photo was confusing, as it had several people in it and they looked they were moving things, not debating. (I know that’s a vital part of what they do, though.) However, I loved the graphics slide that started the viewer off. Nice work with text.

The ending was, for me, almost perfect. I felt a sense of completion with the audio. The only change I would make would be to flip the last two photos, as the zeros in the detail shot of the timer add a sense of finality to it. I think it adds explanation to her expression in the following photo of her staring at the timer, so I’d rather see them in reverse order. But other than that, I loved, loved, loved the framing of the timer images, as at the beginning of the slides the timer reads nine minutes (the length of time alloted for policy debate) and at the end the timer reads zero.

This story is 93 percent about UF policy debate and 7 percent about the debate-team member.

I loved the nat sot (background noise), and toward the end, the subject spoke less and I heard more of it. I think I would prefer that pace throughout. I felt a little rushed with the audio in the beginning, as maybe the interview and the nat sot cut back and forth a few too many times and too quickly. But I know 90 seconds is short, so I understand how working within time constraints can be difficult. The only other thing I wanted was a detail shot of the “cards” they cut for hours? Wasn’t sure what that was, and I think I just needed more visual information.

I loved all the close-ups of people’s expressions. (I’m jealous!) I really thought they captured all the characters on the team that the viewer sees. I also thought the framing was really creative and visually entertaining. I love the first few photos of the speaker’s face framed by the moving dolly. I also loved the photo of the blurry hand and mouth with no eyes, and the one of the guy resting his head in hand, where part of his head is cropped (or left) out. I was gripped when I saw those two images! I’m also impressed that with such a cluttered background that there were several clean, simple, good shots. The audio, also, was clear as a bell, and what amazing nat sot! I don’t know what they were saying, but nonetheless, I was gripped!

My first attempt at Soundslides

I’ve done it!  Well, I’ve tried to anyway.

I’ve created my first Sounslides presentation, a brief story about group fitness classes at the University of Florida.  Amateur? Yes.  Good?  Hardly.  But gosh-darn-it, did I try!  After sifting through more than 700 photos, editing over 45 minutes of nat sot (or background noise for the audio rookies likes me), and chopping down a 12-minute interview, I’ve got something that seems passable.   I wished I picked a more sedentary topic, but with all the kickboxing and cycling going on, I had trouble getting close-ups and detail shots.  My new personal goal for Soundslides 2 (due in two weeks in my journalism multimedia class, Journalist’s Toolkit 1) is to create a Soundslide ripe with detail shots and emotive facial close-ups.

But back to these Soundslides.  The interview is with Nicole Orr, a fitness instructor at UF, and the photos are of three of her different fitness classes - kickboxing, cycling and strength training.   The photographed her classes two different times, taking the audio and conducting the interview during the second go-round.  As a writer, I found it unsettling and way more fun to report this kind of story in this medium.  I felt like I got to capture the experience, instead of my interpretation through words.

Photojournalism – the Web v. the creative

In Kenneth Kobre’s book, he quotes Larry Dailey, a picture editor with MSNBC’s online edition: “A good picture for MSNBC is like an icon,” he said. “It makes you click through, but it is not necessarily a good piece of photojournalism.” (p. 253)

I understand that the fine-tuned technique of creativity and lighting in photography don’t necessarily work on the Web, where quality is lower.  But I find it hard to believe that images like those taken in a “A place unseen,” (p. 140) – where you have black-and-white images with small, important details — wouldn’t be beneficial to a reader on the Web.  Although the very fact that they are in black-and-white works against them in our color-savvy world.

  For instance, the sky in the “Cotton choppers in Sherard, Mississippi, 1992″, the photo in the upper left hand corner, tells such a story.  The clouds, the tones, the texture all give it a rumbling, pent-up, serious quality.  Would that be picked up on the Web?

Sound slides, or large photo stories, might be the solution to this “click-thru” mentality of Web photos.  Take a look at the winner of the National Press Photographer’s Association picture story winner.  The shadows in the sewers and the children’s habitats give those photos their sadness.  I think the Web looks pretty good here.  The raw emotion of the drug-addicted children carries through, almost beyond the medium.  But it’s a photo story, and it’s primary design isn’t to be a Web image.

So what becomes of stories like Annie Wells diary of her breast cancer treatment?  Or the story about “Glimpsing the goths?”  Will those kinds of images, which weren’t originally shot for Web, vanish into obscurity as we shoot images that people are meant to “click through?”  My concern is that Web photography overtake good photojournalism. 

Not to get all passionate about Soundslides, but after taking a quick perusal around some online Web pages, prompted by Kobre’, I realize that the photo story, set to audio or photo-solo, might be the Web’s last hope for quality photojournalism.  The smaller, still images set next to stories are boring or posed. You could easily click through them.  Gone is the appreciation for time-of-day, quality lighting, as mentioned by Kobre’ on page 243.  The lighting – whether it’s soft morning tones or golden late afternoon rays – isn’t as important for the click-able image, at least to my eye, as the image doesn’t have to be as high resolution and quality.  The color balance will therefore be less intense. Which, not to harp on simplicity, but controlling the lighting really makes a photo.  Take a peek at page 246 in Kobre’, where the girl is jump roping against the golden-lit wall, complete with her crisp silhouette.

So I guess I’m left wondering if we’ve got to have a separation between Web and photojournalism?  Newsroom budgets sure aren’t going to allow for it.  I worry that the real cream-of-the-crop photos won’t make their way online, as photojournalists could run them in print and pick their second-rate “click-throughs” as the Web image.  And if the low-quality image really does impede us, then we’re going to need to use more Soundslides to get the visual across.

Nat Sot and all its trappings

When recording natural, background sounds and noise for multimedia productions, it makes sense to record rain drops on a tin roof — the same tin roof, pelted with rain,  you’ll also be capturing with photos or video, as Hal Robertson says in Sound Advice: The Natural Approach. 

The authenticity and credibility it lends a journalist is irreplaceable, for sure.  It also helps a viewer understand the story better.  Short of giving them a taste and whiff of Swiss chocolate, the best way to tell a story of a historical Swiss cocoa factory is to give them decadent pictures, intermingled with the sounds of Swiss workers and machines running.  You’ve got to hit them with as many sensory experiences as possible to tell a complete, interesting story.  To me, a prime example of this is NPR’s tag-along version of a koala-seeking expedition.  The noise is so good and authentic that its eerie.  As others in my Journalist’s Toolkit lab have mentioned, the birds in the clip seem almost pre-recorded — too perfect if you will.  But that’s for a different blog discussion.  I will say this, though.  They sure enhance and help tell the story for the audience.

After reading up on the gathering of natural sound, I listened to a conglomeration by  Chicago audio artist Jesse Seay and was struck by two things.  One: the quality of sound was amazing. (I’d love to know which kind of microphone she used.  Looks like a handheld in the photos of her.)   Two: I wasn’t sure all the sound worked with all the photos.  In the middle of the slides, there are images of wolves, accompanied by what I’m assuming are wolf sounds.

I say “assuming” because I’m not entirely sure.  Granted, I’m not wolf expert.  I haven’t hung around with a local den of them recently.  But that wasn’t what I imagined them sounding like, even though I’m pretty sure its accurate reporting.  The noise didn’t mesh with the images I saw, and I was left confused and skeptical.  I no longer fell into Jesse’s images and story.  It interrupted by experience.

Anyways, my wolf confusion leads me to ask the question: If audio might be confusing, disturbing or unbelievable (even if it is true) for our audience, is it a good idea to use it in a multimedia presentation?  On the one side, I understand we must educate our audience, with the use absolute truth.   But if discordant information, as true as it is, doesn’t fit their schema?  Is it still a good idea to use it?  Or should it get tossed out on the editing floor with other audio and visuals?