Slug & Lede

Wiffle ball is not a typical sport. One player referred to it as “baseball’s baby brother”, while a spectater likened the ball to Swiss cheese. Players practicing the sport in the YouTube video, It’s a Kids Game ; however, take it quite seriously. One spectator even suggested it might be an Olympic sport some day.
The video starts in an awkward way. The camera shows a wide shot of a car pulling away. The shot fades, indicating it was perhaps the ending of a previous video. The next shot is a wide one, showing a trail leading to a tennis court in the distance. The sound in the background is machine-like, leading one to believe it’s following the car pulling away. This is a fallacy, however, as the next shots, shown in rapid, disjointed succession reveal people practicing wiffle ball on a tennis court. The sound from the previous shot came from a ball dispenser.
The video flows nicely from then on as the story unfolds. In fact the overall narration is strong. Each shot builds upon the next. They take the viewer closer to the action. First the camera moves with the sudden action, then shoots from spectators’ eagle-eye perspective. The video flows closer and closer to the players and specators on the ground, audio from them coinciding with the video.
The narration is strong and has purpose. It brings the viewer from outsider to in. The cuts, however, are frantic and too quick at the beginning. Smoother shots are needed at the beginning.

New York Times photographer Chang W. Lee and graphics editor Joe Ward aimed to capture the lasting legacy of the 2008 Beijing Olympic stars in their audio slideshow titled Newsmakers.

The slideshow is comprised of 26 photographs, ranging from Michael Phelps unparalleled swimming performance, Usain Bolt’s unprecedented sprinting times and accomplishments, to the US Men’s Volleyball gold medal ceremony. Throughout the slideshow, which is only progressed when the user clicks the next arrow, Lee and Ward offer brief stints of commentary. While it becomes obvious that the two lack a sufficient athletics background to offer commentary of substance, their, at times, emotional recollection of their observations of the athletes’ performances offers a unique perspective.

However, the practicality of a user controlled slideshow is highly debatable and, in fact, I found it extremely difficult to operate. While you are able to fully grasp the entirety of a photograph before progressing to the next on–as you decide when to continue, the audio often does not line up properly to the photographs. Due to this inefficiency, the audio becomes increasingly lost and seems moderately unnecessary.

The true effect of the piece lies exclusively in the stunning photography it offers. The photographer’s immeasurable ability to capture vibrant images and colors, while also capturing tiny, remote details provides a definite feel of authenticity and, frequently, the images are able to speak and survive for themselves.

As a means of improving the piece, I would have removed Lee and Ward’s voice from the show and replaced it with a collection of audio clips from the Beijing Olympians. By including a first-hand account of their achievements from the athletes themselves, it would have furthered the emotional authenticity and capacity of the show. Furthermore, by adding images of newspaper captions from across the world pertaining to the olympians, the show could potentially portray how the olympics resonated throughout the world. Also, I would change the operation of the show to perhaps include a 30-second individual clip for each image.