Slug & Lede

Danielle Lierow’s story, The Girl in the Window, written by Lane DeGregory, told of a child neglected by her mother who finds hope and love in the care of her newly adoptive parents. The extremely poor conditions of which Danielle had lived in Plant City, Florida, kept her at age seven, from being able to go to the bathroom on her own or even feed herself. With the help of her adoptive parents, Danielle has made great strides in her abilities, she can now go to the bathroom, eat on her own and even convey emotions. This tragic story encompasses the many struggles Danielle’s journey has created in the hopes that one day she will be able to speak and function just as any individual would.

 In its entirety the story was quite compelling. This, for me, was an immediate strength. Although the story was rather lengthy, the in-depth details provided the listener with a knowledge and understanding of the complexities of Danielle’s situation.

 The story also provided the perspectives of various individuals connected to Danielle, from her adoptive parents to her speech therapist and finally to her mother. The story grasped each individual’s opinion, in turn creating an astounding depth to the piece.

 The reader’s voice throughout the piece was very pleasant. The reader was able to capture and convey the emotion presented by the different individuals in Danielle’s life, the way they have interacted with her now and the hope they have for her in the future.

 At times however, the reader would pause to swallow. These instances were made quite clear, as the action could be perfectly heard. I felt this issue distracted me, ultimately taking away from the vigor of the piece. If I were to re-edit this story, I would delete these areas, replacing the noise with a short pause. This would eliminate the distraction without creating an awkward transition.

 The natural sound of a silent room I felt was most appropriate for the piece. Being that this was a story being read, I felt any other sound would only have taken away from its gripping context. Within the background sound however, there were instances when the reader would turn a page. I really like this idea, as I felt it gave the immediate action depth, but her volume levels would fluctuate, making for an awkward few seconds. In order to fix this problem I would suggest a page turner, which would eliminate the reader’s need to shift her placement.

 Finally, I felt the media used for the piece was the most effective. The simple audio really allowed for the listener to focus on what the reader was saying. I felt anything added such as a slideshow would have taken away from the story itself. If only several pictures were added, demonstrating Danielle’s progress in the two years following her foster care, this could help enhance the audio.

 Overall, I felt the story was incredibly compelling, presented in an almost flawless manner.

Beautiful sunset over the beach in Long Key.

This photo was taken over spring break 2007 on my trip to the Florida Keys.  While on the trip I went on tours, swimming, and snorkeling.  I noticed that all week the sunsets were amazing.  Therefore, on the last day I decided to take a few pictures outside my hotel on Long Key.  This trip was my second trip to the Keys. I really love it there.  I hope to go back soon.

The Girl in the Window  tells the story of Danielle, a young florida girl who was neglected and had little contact with humans for the first six years of her life. Considered to be feral, Danielle is currently unable to speak or act as other children her age do. Lane DeGregory and Melissa Lyttle of the St. Petersburg Times spoke to Danielle’s adoptive parents about the struggles they face to raise Danielle as their own and show her the love she has never known. 

In my opinion, Lane DeGregory and Melissa Lyttle did an absolutely wonderful job in making this audio/slideshow. I was immediately drawn into the piece as you hear the description of the home in which the little girl was born and lived. Detective Mark Holste’s insight into what he saw, felt, and smelled when he entered the house where Danielle was found allowed me to place myself into the scene and to feel the disgust that he felt. I believe that the choice to place his audio first was wise because it allowed me to become invested emotionally in the story and to truly want to know what happened to the little girl that lived in such deplorable conditions.

The photographs from the scene of the home also were extremely powerful as Holste explained the background information about Danielle that the viewer may not have been aware of. The home looked terrible, and paring the photographs of the home’s boarded windows, dirty dishes piled in the sink and filthy bathroom made me cringe. The mere fact that Danielle was able to survive on her own in the conditions is a story that is worth telling and also extremely interesting. 

I also loved the fact that DeGregory and Lyttle paired Danielle’s adoptive family’s audio clips with the sounds of her crying and acting like an infant. It allowed me to see that the family is patient with her, and also gave me greater insight into the obstacles they face. I believe that without this audio the viewer may not have a complete understanding of how prominent the neglect that Danielle experienced was.

One of the few suggestions that I would make to the producers of “The Girl in the Window” is that I think it would have been nice to have more photographs of Danielle when she first was taken from the home so that they could be compared to how she looks. The single photo that  showed the transition from starving feral child to a healthy and happy 8-year-old was powerful, but I believe that being able to witness Danielle’s development would ultimately evoke a more emotional response from the viewer.

The multimedia package, “Winter’s Tale” by the St. Petersburg Times, is a relatively small package, but very interesting.  It consists of videos, pictures, text, and graphics.  It does not take up a whole page, and could have possibly been larger, but the smaller size enables an easier navigation minus overwhelming amounts of text.

My first impression of the piece was of sentimentality, the story of an injured baby dolphin captured my attention, and I needed to know the story.  It is not a large package, nor is it very complex, but it is very easy to navigate and flows smoothly.  The short summaries on the right, while the video played on the left, were extremely effective.  The page wasn’t overloaded with links, instructions, or descriptions.  The different chapters under a topic popped up underneath the leading link, and the links were very manageable.  Even the order of the links at the top of the page were organized, in an order of most importance to the story.  For example, the package begins with video of Winter the dolphin and told the audience why they should care about her story.  The package ended with the graphic link explaining the prothesis tail the aquarium gave her, which is not essential to the story, but extremely helpful.

The videos are effective in telling Winter’s story.  The music in the background, mixed with the interviews and film clips, is not distracting, and you get caught up in watching.  However, I would have liked to see a cleaner ending, at times the clips seemed too short, or just cut off.  For example, when the trainers are describing how they taught Winter to use her fake tail, the video ends before you can really figure out what they are doing.  Also, the video plays right as you load the page, so as you’re trying to read the description, you’re also trying to watch the video at the same time to watch what is going on.  I had to watch the video twice to fully understand.

I liked how when you selected the link to read the story, you weren’t immediately bombarded with text.  You could select which part of the story you would like to read.  There were also links underneath the package, in case the ones in the package were not working.  I really liked the design of the package.  Everything tied together, from the background, to the font, to the illustrations.  While not a hard news story, it’s a nice feature piece, especially when the video touches upon how Winter has affected other kids with disabilities.  It was very well done.

I listened to “The Surrogate” which was a series that appeared on the St. Petersburg Times website (FL) about a woman, Carolyn Zinn, known as the “cervix of steel” who is a professional surrogate for couples who cannot conceive children on their own.  The audio segment played over a photograph slideshow.  Interspersed were video clips of interviews with medical experts that were not directly involved in the care of the surrogate mother, but have experience with surrogacy.

I really liked the surrogate’s audio clips.  There wasn’t much background noise which worked with the subject matter well.  I got a sense that being a surrogate is a pretty lonely experience and without a lot of ambient noise the audio seems hollow and maybe a little detached.  I think crying babies in the background would have been too much and distracting.  The lack of background noise also allows the listener to hear the emotion in her voice.  Several times you can tell she is speaking on the verge of tears.  At times it seemed too quiet, for example, between thoughts there was dead air.  Perhaps a sound signifying a new clip would have been nice and a less awkward transition.  Or editing the clips to run more consecutively would have helped the flow of the peice.  The photographs were interesting.  Some were taken during the impantation of the embryos and others were taken of Zinn at home waiting to find out if she was pregant.  At times I wasn’t paying attention to the images and then there would be a particularly odd one that distracted me from the audio.  Perhaps a better sequence of photos or if they matched more closely with what the audio was talking about, the two wouldn’t compete for the audience’s attention.

Lenora LaPeter Anton, the journalist, introduced each of the medical experts before their video interviews.  It was very distracting.  She spoke very slowly and enunciated every syllable.  It did not flow with the conversational tone of the surrogate’s clips.  There was a little bit of music as the reporter introduced the piece, it would have been a nice bookend effect if it had closed the piece, as well.

Floridan Hotel, an interactive timeline

In the Floridan Hotel there is a timeline on the Interactive Narratives website on the different things that happened in the hotel’s history after being built in the 1920’s.

Interactive Narratives does a nice job with this piece. It was very interesting and had several elements in it. It had pictures, video interview footage, a jazzy song, text, and different things you could click on throughout the piece.

I thought the piece was pretty straightforward and easy to follow. It was a timeline of the hotel (construction, people that worked there etc.), so right away it is obvious of what it is about. The one part that was not really confusing but a bit odd was just a few seconds into it they have some old guy that is just hanging out with nothing by him but a little play button. You click on him and find out that he worked at the hotel. He than is in the piece later but the picture of him is blown up to a big picture. So I didn’t really think that was confusing, just a little odd.

My biggest concern is that the timeline goes very slow and is very long. I understand that it is a timeline though so when it started all the way back in the 1920’s it will be a long piece.

I enjoyed the little plus symbols throughout the piece that you could click on and it would give you more information about that certain piece you clicked on. I thought that was a cool feature and it allows the user not to have to sit and read everything if they don’t want to. Like we discussed in class, you want to give the audience as many options as possible.

The pictures were all interesting to look at and I thought it was cool that they had some pictures in color and some in black and white it shook things up more. I also liked that they were able to utilize several pictures throughout the video, with using small pictures, big pictures, smaller pictures over the bigger ones and so on.

Overall, I was very impressed with the way they laid this timeline out. It was certainly the most entertaining timeline I have ever seen. The best thing they did on there was to let people click on stuff throughout the piece that included a wide variety of things from audio clips to text of what happened or who the person you clicked on was. The only problem I had was they needed to make it a little faster.

Teeing off after the sun has gone down.

This picture is of myself was taken in Florida over the summer. In it, I am teeing off on the 18th hole at Riverwoods golf course in Fort Meyers, FL. It was after closing hours and the management were quite angry at us for not coming in sooner.