Slug & Lede

Buddies in the Rocky Mountains

Every year I’m a counselor at a cross country camp in Colorado with three of my good friends. During the summer of 2007 we decided to stick around in Colorado for the weekend and backpack through the Rocky Mountains in Estes Park. This is a picture of us at the top of one of the mountain trails. I particularly like this picture because not only does it include three of my closest friends, but there’s also an amazing backdrop of mountains behind us. Although it took us nearly 8 hours to hike the 10 miles up and down through the mountains, it was an amazing experience shared with amazing friends.

Wayne Drehs certainly did some exceptional reporting for his multimedia package on ESPN.com’s Eticket story, “Ray of hope.”  Drehs’ package tells the gripping story of Jason Ray, a former University of North Carolina student who also happened to be the school’s mascot for basketball games.  Ray was killed shortly before UNC’s trip to the NCAA tournament in 2007, and although the story is tragic, Drehs digs deeper to find a silver lining.

Ray was killed in a car accident, and he was an organ donor.  In an amazing turn of events, his organs ended up saving four people’s lives through transplants.  Drehs does a great job of telling the story of each recipient of Ray’s organs, but the organization leaves something to be desired.

The first page of the package has a very long video that gives background to Ray’s basic story and two fairly unrelated anecdotes told through text.  All of these elements add to the overall value of the story, but the project is lacking in smooth transitions between its contributing elements.  There is an extensive amount of content, but it is kind of hard to filter through what is most important if one doesn’t want to spend hours looking at this one story.

The story is split into three parts, labeled “life,” “death,” and “rebirth.”  It is a nice touch that the three are separated into three different pages and are simple to navigate between, but the three titles are quite vague and could be improved so that they better represent what is contained on each individual page.

There is a wealth of text, a ton of video, and just the right amount of pictures in this project.  The pictures add to the story and bring each organ recipient’s situation into a more personal light, but the stories are a little hard to sort out in the massive amount of text.  Drehs could have omitted much more as far as text goes, which would have helped to keep viewers’ attention.  The videos could have been cut down considerably as well.  I applaud the depth that Drehs goes into, but it is unrealistic to think that anyone will spend that much time to get the main point of a story.  It’s really too bad, because I think the story is amazing and would be very compelling to a lot of people, if only it could have been tightened up.

MediaStorm is a multimedia website organized by the Washington Post. The media piece “The Ninth Floor” by Jessica Dimmock depicts the lives of several people in their 20s and 30s,all of which are drug addicts, and lived on the ninth floor on an apartment complex in New York City. Squatters turned the floor into a chaotic mess. Dimmock follows these people, taking photographs and audio interviews, for three years.

The piece is structured as a photo slideshow, with intermittent text updating the viewer on what is happening to the persons featured. This, along with audio of the addicts themselves, provides a good depiction of just what they are going through. Hearing it from their mouths gives it a great amount of authenticity. The story itself if very comprehensive and easy to follow-all three elements of the piece complement one another, and certainly work better as a whole than they would separately.

The photography used for this multimedia package is certainly what will grab most people’s attention. Dimmock does not sugarcoat what she sees, and seems to present every photo in its original state. Again, this promotes the credibility of the work, and the photos themselves are dynamic enough to tell a story. They do progress quickly, however, so one needs to pay close attention in order to capture the full spectrum of what Dimmock is trying to present.

“Talk about a great assignment.”

The opening line of the NPR audio slideshow, Road Trip, sounds just as cheesy in audio as it reads on paper.

A roughly three minute documentary about an Easy Rider-style road trip has the potential and the creativity to breath fresh air into the often stale coverage of the presidential campaigns, but fails slightly in its execution. While the most journalists were traveling to follow campaign rallies, a few NPR correspondents decided to embark on an “old fashioned road trip” across the U.S. in order to find out people’s opinions on the concept leadership. Great idea. The problems lie in the presentation.

From the first sentence and the sound of an office door opening, followed seconds later by the sound of revving engines, viewers might almost get confused as to whether they are listening to a public radio feature story or a children’s audiobook. Obviously, with such a politically driven theme, the broadcast was not for children. At the same time, the narrator’s slow and painfully hesitant commentary made the documentary seem awkward and scripted in certain moments.

After an oversimplified beginning, I think the goal of the journalists was quite interesting: to find the pulse of the central U.S. and write about the diversity of perspectives within the broad area we call our country. The narrator details a handful of locations: Chicago, St. Louis, Arkansas, Colorado, Phoenix and allows the viewer to taste the culture of each through use of music and scenery noise. A more in-depth look would have made the stops more meaningful, but at the same time the short clips of each place kept the story moving and maintained the feel of a fast-paced road trip.

The redeeming value of the mini-documentary was found in the photos. Throughout the clip, the music/sounds reinforced the scrolling images, and the images were very compelling and professionally shot.

Unfortunately the clip ended how it began: a cliché wrap-up commentary as images of a road at night ran into darkness.

For my slideshow I did was Theatrical Wedding.

I think the shot of the videos was superfluous because it really didn’t have anything to do with the wedding.  That shot sort of threw me off; especially since at that point I wasn’t sure where the couple was getting married.  It didn’t make sense to me.

In general, the photography itself is so-so.  There are nice pictures of the bride and groom and the wedding party, emphasis on the word “nice”.  Not outstanding, not horrid, just nice.  However, through the sound and the pictures I get the feeling that the couple wasn’t too uptight about the ceremony, so perhaps the “nice” quality of the pictures fit them perfectly.

The part where they exchange their vows really works for me because we see pictures of the people and the couple as they’re getting married, much like a person would look at the people around them and at the couple.

What really saved these pictures from being lackluster was the sound.  I love that we can hear background noise over everything-cars, music playing in the background.  It brought the pictures back down to earth, it gave them context, instead of them just being cold pictures of a wedding of a couple we don’t know.  The sounds gave the pictures character.

In The Political Landscape, David Winter of The New York Times uses a photo essay as a medium to showcase his journey through the political campaign. Winter places his photos side by side in diptychs, which, according to Webster’s New World College Dictionary, is defined as anything consisting of two parallel or contrasting parts.

There are many things that Winter did well, such as taking exquisite pictures and placing them in contrasting, almost ironic, diptychs. However that’s where I feel the positives end.

When watching this video, the viewer is given the option of watching full screen or watching within the browser. I believe the viewing experience is lessened either way. While watching in the browser, there are captions on the bottom of the screen that describes exactly what the pictures are. On the other hand, when watching in full screen, the captions aren’t there.

When I was watching in my browser I thought the captions were helpful, but then I couldn’t really take in Winter’s narration and fully enjoy the pictures. Contrasting that, when watching in full screen without the captions I felt like I wasn’t able to accurately put the pictures in context. I’m not sure how to fix this, but as a viewer, I thought it was unsuccessful.

This election is a defining moment for America and millions of people are excited about the process. When watching this photo essay I felt no excitement from David Winter. Listening to his narration, it seemed as if he was devoid of emotion, which made the overall essay bland for me.

Another minor issue with the narration was that he didn’t start talking about the pictures being shown until almost halfway through the essay. I think he could have introduced the photo essay while the title and definition was playing and then jump right into narrating and talking about the pictures when they began.

Finally, David Winter’s narration was very intellectual, which, isn’t so much of an issue given that it’s published by the Times. My question though is, for the normal person, might this photo essay be too intellectual? The vocabulary he’s using and the comparisons and contrasts he’s making are very insightful, but could very well be too intricate for the average viewer.

Overall, I think Winter’s photo essay was interesting and compelling, but failed to achieve a satisfying viewing experience mainly because of the narration and also the formats for viewing.

I enjoyed listening to the audio slide show entitled “Frank Bruni on Affordable Sushi Restaurants”. The piece featured two beautiful sushi restaurants located in New York. The interviewee spoke of the quality of food and service in each restaurant. He also spoke of the differences in prices and luxury in each restaurant and explained clearly the pros and cons of each restaurant to the listener. The audio piece was coupled with beautiful photography including some stunning closeups of the sushi.

The audio portion of piece was done in the interview format. The interviewer did not make use of nat sound which was appropriate as it would have been distracting and would have taken away from the essence of the piece. The majority of the piece was taken up by the voice of the interviewee who had a pleasant voice. He spoke clearly and eloquently which made listening to him easier which therefore made it easier for the listener to pay attention.

Overall, I think that the piece was very well done and it captured my attention from begining to end. The only portion I did not like was that the interviewer did not speak as clearly or as eloquently as I would have liked.

In the New York Times audio slideshow piece Two Paths Toward Death, One Voice of Comfort, narrator Paul Vitello tells how two people found comfort at the end of their lives in a Buddhist monk.

The opening photo of the piece is nice; it shows an obviously ill woman reaching for comfort.
However, the shot would have been more effective if the comforting arm was not blurry. Other shots in the piece do a good job of showing the many facets of the dying peoples’ lives. Shots of family pictures and the husband in the case of the woman show an obvious orientation to family. In the case of the man, the audio tells of his need for connection to people, and the pictures include many shots of him and the priest together.

The audio contains no b-roll. However, in this case, I feel this is an acceptable decision. In a piece on the acceptance of death and dying it is only natural that the background be languid and quiet. All of the interviewees were strong and had easy to listen to voices. However, considering all of the interview subjects were men, at times it was difficult to remember who the voice belonged to, especially between the narrator and husband. For this reason, I think it may have been better if a woman had narrated the piece so that there could be some variation in the audio.

Content-wise, I was also slightly confused. Was the piece a profile on the monk, or one of the dying people? All three would have made interesting pieces, and I felt the video should have narrowed its focus and told just one story. My other problem with the piece was the end. What “debate” were they talking about, and who has a “narrative Buddhist style?” This seemed to come from nowhere, and the viewer ended on a confused note.

Other than these few problems, it was a very nice piece.

In the New York Times audio slideshow titled “Two Paths Toward Death, One Voice of Comfort,” a narrator walks the audience through two lives: one already deceased and another close to the end.

The introduction starts with a quote from the spouse of the deceased woman, generalizing the process of death. This choice of audio at the beginning successfully captures the meaning of the entire piece and acts as the thesis.

However, the piece contains more than one story. The listener does not find out that another subject will enter the piece until halfway through the audio slideshow. The 95-year-old man enters the narration abruptly and without proper transition.

The audio describes the religious paths many take while dying, then it jumps into the elderly man seeing the monk without using dialogue to connect the two thoughts.

Overall, the piece maintains a lot of excellent qualities. The producers chose clips that articulate the thought without faltering. In addition, the variety of voices and flawless transitions from one sound bite to another make a crisp, compelling story.

Although the producers structured the piece much like a written article, a few things could have been done differently to make it more comprehendible.

After the initial quote, the narrator should have said something about the two lives rather than diving into the life of the deceased woman. A couple sentences about both lives would have provided a context for the whole piece. As is, the piece seems disjointed.

Also, at times it was difficult to recognize the speakers. That could have been easily cleared up by introducing each person through the narration.

Finally, the end could have had more of a kicker. The elderly man talked about the upcoming debate, which seemed off-topic, then the piece ended. Perhaps a sentence or two about both stories, a conclusion, would have done the trick.

Frank Bruni’s audio slideshow on the New York Sushi Experience, reviewed two sushi restaurants, Sushi Azabu and Kanoyama.

I love sushi, so I was instantly drawn this particular slideshow.

The voiceover consists of dialogue between Pete Wells and Frank Bruni. They keep the conversation casual and easy to follow. Bruni reviews two sushi dinning experiences in New York. He comments on their affordability, atmosphere and quality of food.

Overall, I thought the pictures were great! The voiceover used excellent descriptive language and the photographs brought these words to life. The colors were extremely bright and vivid. The pictures of the rolls showed how delicate and intricate each piece is. Furthermore, the photographs of the beautifully decorated restaurants and the costumers in each restaurant were very welcoming. In both restaurants there was a good mix of costumer photographs. It made it clear that anyone and everyone was welcome in both environments. Also, the photographs of the woman walking down the stairs and the cobblestone floor added to the uniqueness of the restaurant.

While I did enjoy this slideshow, my main complaint is the lack of natural sound. When I think of sushi restaurants I usually think of people chanting the sake bomb chant, plates clinking and people talking. I felt natural noise would have been particularly helpful in constructing the atmosphere when Bruni said the restaurant was a bit cramped. I think that point was lost by only displaying a picture of tables close to each other.