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!
I enjoyed this soundslides. I agree with the critique: The close-up photos were excellent. And I completely agree that the show should have ended on the 0:00 timer. I thought there might have been a clearer definition of what “spreading” actually is.
And while there is the comment about how the debate team made her UF experience, I still don’t know if this is a “story”.
It is more like a description of her experience on the debate team. I see meaning and purpose to the soundslides – it contained great information and was interesting – but it didn’t seem to follow an arc, with a dramatic moment and a resolution.
All in all, I thought it was great, though.
Comment by dtrunk — October 29, 2007 @ 9:16 pm
Y’all weren’t the first ones to suggest I switch the last two slides.
I showed the slides to the woman who owns that timer, Marissa Silber, and she made the same comment. Initially, I didn’t want to end on the 00:00:53 timer shot because it wasn’t at zero. I thought it would be weird and possibly inaccurate to combine a non-zero slide with the sound of the timer hitting zero. Does that make sense? Anyway. Another reason I ended that was was practical: I didn’t have a shot of zero time on that timer. That was what I told Marissa. She said she had the timer with her and would let me take a photo of it. I declined and explained the ethics of why set-up shots are very bad. So, then, I felt JUSTIFIED in not ending with the timer. I further convinced myself that my way was a good thing to do because I liked the idea of the slideshow ended on an image of Amanda. I should have gotten a zero shot of the timer and probably would have ended on it, if I had it.
I’m surprised about how much what seemed logical during the creative process didn’t turn out to be intuitive to viewers. Interesting. I have to say though, I’d probably do the same thing with the ending over again if I were making this with the same material. Because now I’ve convinced myself that I LIKE leaving people unsettled — giving them the opposite of what they expect. : ) It didn’t really work here, but it might work with something else.
This soundtrack was the second I created for this soundslide. The first one was about 2:30-3:00, and top tracks were cut into segments “policy is,” “captains do,” “why I got into debate,” “how to win a debate,” “to spread or not to spread,” and “what debate means to me.” It was just too much information. I couldn’t shape it into something that fit into 90 seconds. So I ditched it and went for what y’all heard in the final version – a short overview. When I think about it, I don’t think that version told a story either — but then, that wasn’t really the essence of this assignment. If I were going for a story, I might have asked her to tell me about how she won the debate that they were packing for in the packing pictures. Again, I don’t know how that would fit into 90 seconds, either.
Also, I worried a lot about the lower track overpowering and obscuring important words. I used Audition instead of Audacity. This was the first time I used it with a ton of multiple tracks. I went through several versions of the audio track because some of the volume adjustments made the end result sound tinny in soundslides, even though it sounded fine in Audition. I think the final version is still a little tinny on some computers — like my laptop speakers at home.
And last, thanks for the rave comments Brittany. I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Comment by philicher — October 31, 2007 @ 8:59 am