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.