Slug & Lede

The audio piece for the Colts’ fans in Houston was not what I anticipated it to be. The piece does a subpar job of describing or visualizing what Colts fans are like in Houston, and trails off quite a bit at the the end. However it is an uplifting piece, it just has a confusing title and doesn’t focus much on the Colts fans.

The strengths of the piece are the music and the entrance of the Colts. They inserted the music in there to get you ready for the colts to come out, which I thought played well with the slide show. There’s also a clip of a lady yelling “The Super Bowl champs are here” which let the Houston fans know who was in town. I thought both of these played really well into the audio and should have been the stepping stone into the rest of the piece. Also I think the idea of showing the fans before the game with some interaction, and followed by the game and how it progressed was a great idea. I think the orginization of that went well.

The weaknessses of the piece seemed more prevalent to me than the strengths. The video was very confusing because it is supposed to be a piece on the Colts fans in Houston and was almost anything but that. Instead, it starts out with Houston Texan fans, trash talking colts fans and beating what looks to be a colt Peyton Manning pinata. Even though that could have been a great transition into some footage of Colts fans, it seemed to focus more on profiling Texans fans than Colts fans in the beginning.

After that we finally get some Colts fans, who happen to be the only Colts fans featured in the audio piece,  it goes right into the Colts entering the stadium and focuses on the Texans fans booing the Colts. This still has me wondering when they will show the Colts fans. I think the piece definitely needed more interaction betweeen Colts fans and Texans fans, and if anything should have focused on the Colts fans in Houston, because that was the topic. As far as the actual editing of the audio, it was a decent job. They could have transitioned into the game a little bit better, but i did like the idea they had. I think visual media is necessary for this piece, and while i think an audio slide show is good, I think a longer video segment is what is needed.

Overall it was a nice piece with a great idea. While I think the piece was very inspiring, it was also a little confusing. The title of the piece leads me to believe it is going to be about Colts fans in Houston. Again, it seemed almost anything but that. I think the clip they did get of the Colts fans in the beginning, and some of the game pictures fit in very well with the piece, and they should have shown more of that.The piece definitely needs more audio and visuals of the Colts fans, however I liked where they were going with it.

Rather than using a slideshow with only pictures and narration, I think the Colts’ fans in Houston piece featured on Indystar.com did a nice job of utilizing additional components. For example, the music and the two clips outside the stadium before the game began did a nice job of combining various aspects of the game. Other multimedia resources can be considered, but ultimately, I think this was the proper and most effective medium. Attending a game as a fan of the visiting team is a unique experience, far different than it is going to a game cheering on the home team. As a longtime sports fan myself, I’ve attended a few games in support of a Chicago team on the road, and as a result can relate to the atmosphere and experience. This piece did a nice job of depicting the atmosphere in Texas, and effectively demonstrated the experience of going on the road to support your team.

The two areas of this slideshow that in my opinion could be edited differently are the second clip shown of the Colts’ fans outside the stadium, and in the middle of the piece there was a brief moment of silence where the music was faded out. As I stated above, the two clips outside the stadium before kick-off do a nice job of setting the tone for the experience, and definitely were effective, but the audio editing needs additional work. The background noise in the second clip where the two Colts’ fans are cheering is extremely loud and almost distracting. I’m not sure if it was taken in a different spot outside the stadium than the first outdoor clip, but it was noticeably louder. I really enjoyed the music that was inserted, and I liked that the stadium noise was still faint in the background. The only issue I had with the music insert was the brief moment about halfway through the piece when Reggie Wayne caught the ball and the music stopped. Whether it was paused intentionally, or the song was in the process of restarting, it was inconsistent from the rest of the piece and slightly awkward. If the music was continuous I think it would feel smoother and more natural. Overall, the piece was compiled well, good job!

Cats need homes is a video piece done by Pawel Dwulit of The Star.  The video is about Frank Currell, a man that owned over 80 cats. Currell had to part with  most of them because his wife passed away and he now has cancer and he is unable to take care of them.

A strong strength of this piece is the story itself.  Having over 80 cats is quite interesting.  However, the shaky camera was very distracting.  It was hard to pay attention.  Another strength was the changing of the camera angles to show how many and what kind of cats there were in his home.  It was nice to see those low angles to get perspective of a cat. It was nice to see a photo of his wife and a jump to his sons when they were mentioned in the story as well.

Even though I did enjoy the short length of the video, there are a lot of questions unanswered in this piece that really could have added some more depth.  I want to know where and what size of a place he lives in.  I would have loved to see a wide establishing shot.  That wider shot would have a lot more impact on the viewer.  More interaction of him with the cats would have been great, especially from a different location in his home.

I think this piece could have been done as a photo and audio slideshow.  The photographer could have gotten some really great off-moments and impacting interaction of Frank and his cats.  This way, the movement of the camera would not be so distracting for the viewer.

Pawel Dwulit’s video piece, Cats Need Homes, features the interesting story of Frank Currell, a Scarborough resident who has over 80 cats living with him.  Now, after years of caring for the stray felines, he has to give most of them up due to the death of his wife and health reasons.

One thing that I really liked about this video was the different shots of the cats.  Instead of just viewing them lying around, Dwulit showed one peeping out from under the kitchen table, two black cats behind a set of canned goods, and a close-up of one with its tongue out.  This variety of shots kept me from getting bored.

Another part of the video that I thought was done well was the use of b-roll.  A more specific example of this is when Frank is talking about “his boys” helping him out, and the video cuts to his son and possibly his son’s wife in the kitchen with some of the cats.

One detail that I noticed during the piece that I feel could have been done better was some of the audio editing.  About halfway through the video there was an awkward pause that didn’t really have any good nat sound or anything.

A second small thing I noticed that I didn’t really fit into the video was when the picture of Frank’s deceased wife.  I felt like the shot was forced and it was also tilted at a weird angle, so that made it kind of awkward to look at.

If I had edited this piece, I would have only done a couple of things differently.  Mainly, I probably would have gotten a better variety of shots with Frank in them.  I might have shown him feeding the kitties or cleaning the litter box or something other than just sitting on the couch petting a cat.

I think that a video was the perfect type of media for this story.  I don’t think that text really could have conveyed the enormity of how many cats this man has.  I think that actually being able to picture what a house filled with over 80 cats looks like is much more effective than simply stating, “Frank Currell owns more than 80 cats.”

The Star posted a video about an old man who is having to give away many of his beloved 80-some cats.

The video starts off and it is apparent that the videographer is not using a tripod. The camera is visibly shaky when it is panning out on the old man, caressing a couple of his cats. When the man tells about how his wife passed away, they have him speaking while getting a close-up of a photo of his wife. The camera is still not on a tripod, because the camera is still very shaky. If this was the case throughout the entire video, I do not think it would’ve been a problem. The man is quite old, and although he is not physically shaky, he still has a slow and turbulent voice. But instead of using this format throughout the entire video, they only did it for the first 45 seconds or so, and then they decide to set up a tripod. Then it goes back and forth from getting shaky shots to stable shots. The inconsistency was very annoying. He also switches camera angles of the man, which is okay, except the first shot of the old man shows him directly in the center of the camera, which is usually not a good place for the subject to be. Later in the video, though, he is on the left third of the shot, which is a better place for an interviewee to be situated in the shot.

The shots of the cats were a very nice touch, mostly because they chose to get on the same level as the cats. There were so many cats throughout the video, I thought that using these angles was very appropriate because that’s the main viewpoint seen in the house. They didn’t just get floor videos looking up, they got many different shots; cats on the couch, cats on the table, and what the cat would be looking at.

I wish that they would’ve got the opinion of more than just the old man, though. There is a shot where he talks about his sons, and then you see the sons hanging out in the kitchen, but you never hear from them. You hear some cats’ opinions throughout the video for background noise, which I thought was great. With so many cats in one place, I bet that’s just normal for them to hear hissing and purring all the time. Although the cat background noise was a nice touch, at the end the old man tells a funny joke, and unfortunately you can hear a woman laugh a little bit. I don’t know if that could have been edited out, but it was a bit distracting, especially because you don’t hear from any women (or anyone else besides the man for that matter) during the entire video.

When I first entered The Star’s travel portion of the website, my initial response was “disaster!” Although the page has a dominant image and story, as a whole, the site is overwhelming. There are at least 40 links on the page. Although consumers appreciate options, sometimes they would like some direction.

Immediately the first link I click on is the largest image. Unfortunately, the link merely enlarged the photograph of Niagara Falls and provided very little information. The next links I proceeded to click on were off next to the dominant image. They were some of the only links left in the small frame of the page without needing to scroll down. After reading the lead I proceeded to the main page.

The next link I click on contains a story about India. The photography is amazing and the lead is fairly catchy, I read on.

However, you can only read so much of one type of thing. My boredom set in and I wanted to leave the site. I expected more photography, more video, less things to click on and shorter reading.

Overall, the interactive website was less interactive than I wish it were. The video that the site has was camouflaged and appeared to be photography, rather than a video. There was too much information crammed onto one page and most of the stories required the viewer to scroll. Flashy, distracting advertisements took up one third of the viewing space.

A disappointment in technology, Facebook welcomes Elizabeth Timmins . . .

It Really is Brain Surgery is an audio slide show from The Star that presents one young man’s surgery to remove a brain tumor.

The beginning of this audio slide show had the potential to leave the listener a little confused. There is no direct introduction of what the subject is, therefore making it difficult to understand. Instead of starting with a quote from the patient, the editor should possibly consider introducing the situation when using an audio piece.

Because the main focus seems to be the fact that he is awake during this surgery, more details need to be described on this aspect. Those who are not familiar with the medical practice of removing a tumor while the patient is awake, which would be a majority of the population, need more information to fully understand the remarkable procedure.

The piece needs some editing. The cuts between the patient and the doctor are sometimes too quick to transition, and the voices are not necessarily completely clear. With so much important information, the audio needs to be arranged in a very precise way.

The natural sound also caused the audio to sound somewhat messy. The interview with the doctor was clearly conducted in the hospital or in a busy setting, but the interview with the patient was conducted in a quiet setting. They should have picked one or the other because the natural sound transitioning from noisy to complete silence does not make for an overall effective background which is very important for an audio piece.

Using audio for this particular subject could be very successful. Since it is based on a serious issue, having video may have distracted the listeners and viewers. On the other hand, when the small description of the procedure is being described, it would be hard to understand what is being said without pictures to show what the doctor is talking about.

The Star’s Scott Simmie visits Beijing’s Chaoyang Park, which he describes as “Ping Pong Park”. The piece is a look at the people who frequent this park in Beijing to practice playing ping pong. There were a few things that I really liked about this video. I liked the opening sequence, because I feel that the still shots of the park and the medium shot of the man on the bench work together with the voice over to create the scene that the narrator is trying to portray. It makes the park seem like a peaceful place to be. I thought that the different shots of the people while they were practicing were effective. The panning shot of the park while people were playing portrays the amount of people that visit the park to play and shows the activity which adds movement to the piece.
I also liked the medium shot of the two men on the bench because it portrays the camaraderie that the video is describing. I liked the focus on the married couple, and the close ups of them during their interview were effective. I thought that the ending was nice because it tied together the main person in the piece with a younger girl, which shows the timelessness of the park and the game itself.

To improve this piece, I would add more dialogue from other people. It started to drag on only listening to the voice over. I feel that the should have used other voices to translate the two people that were interviewed to add a little color to the piece rather than only listening to them for a few seconds and then having the voice over explain what they were saying.
I also thought that the shot on the ping pong table, looking up at the man while he was playing was a little strange. I didn’t think that it added anything to the video, and I would have rather seen a close up on his face while he was playing.
Some of the comments the narrator said such as “you get the sense there’s a lot of back and forthin this relationship” and “locals will sometimes play like this for hours before its time to throw in the towel” (which accompanied a close up of a towel), were a pretty cheesy and detracted from the piece.
I thought the order of the piece worked well because it set up the story and was easy to follow because it was such a light and entertaining topic.