Appreciation for a great interview
I showed this to my students last week, and apparently most of them agreed with me — this is not your average Soundslides.
At 5 min. 27 sec., it’s much longer than what works best for most audio slideshows. Consensus among people who watch a lot of audio slideshows is that after 2 minutes, most of these pieces get really boring, really fast. Redundancy or “drift” is usually the culprit. Boredom sets in when the repetition starts, or when the story loses focus or turns to a second topic.
So maybe that’s why I sat through this piece — an interview with one man — for more than 5 minutes and never lost interest. As I told the students, all the planets are aligned here:
- A single strong, interesting character
- An unusual story
- Real emotion
- Great photos that add depth to the story (not just wallpaper)
The story, from The New York Times: Free and Uneasy: The First Year Out.
Some slideshows have great photos but lack a strong story to carry the viewer through to the end. Some stories have a few great photos and a lot of filler images that grind away and kill our interest. Someone remarked to me that this story ought to have some nat sound to take it to the next level; usually I would agree, but in this case I don’t think it’s necessary.
[...] Teaching Online Journalism » Appreciation for a great interview I showed this to my students last week, and apparently most of them agreed with me — this is not your average Soundslides. (tags: multimedia) [...]
December 6, 2007 at 9:20 amI don’t think I’d change a thing about this. Natural sound is great when it works, but I think it can be forced at times. I think the beauty of this is the simplicity of it.
It’s just one man’s voice with photos of him, but it’s an incredible story. It’s also the kind of story that lends itself well to an audio slideshow. I think a lot of organizations try to force audio slideshows. It only works when you have photos and audio that are of fairly equal quality. Otherwise you are dragging down your great photos with so-so audio or vice versa.
Plus, the audio and photos need to fit together, which a lot of people don’t seem to take into account.
December 8, 2007 at 6:28 pmI really like the photos toward the end that illustrate so vividly what he’s saying about feeling separate and alone.
December 8, 2007 at 7:51 pm