Doing ‘Dragnet’ in Soundslides
I remember liking the TV cop show “Dragnet” a lot when I was a kid. I was reminded of that “Just the facts, ma’am” drama while I watched and listened to this report from the Reno (Nev.) Gazette-Journal: Was It Suicide?
The audio is very effective, in my opinion. What do you think about the way photographs were used?
I haven’t seen a slideshow quite like this before. I think it’s very exciting that journalists are trying out new formats for telling true stories.
(Read more about slideshows in online journalism.)
Categories: slideshows, storytelling
This soundslide was very different,and I agree that the audio and photos were helpful in telling the story. I think the photos coincided well with the narration and even added a personal touch to story. They made it more realistic especially the pictures of Winn, his apartment and the 911 lines. The technique of zooming in on the photos seemed to fit the movement of the story. Allowing the photos to linger was more effective than just flashing them for a couple of seconds since the purpose was to get the audience ponder whether or not the death was a suicide.
Interestingly, the narrator’s voice added a mysterious tone to the story. It would be cool if police departments or newspapers would use soundslides for controversial or dramatic reports. This could even be an effective way to solve cases.
However, I think the soundslide would be even better if the narrator wasn’t speaking when slides with text were showing. It was a difficult for me to read the text and listen to the narrator at the same time.
I showed this to my class this morning. The sentiment was that while the audio was appealing – largely as a result of narrator’s booming theatrical voice and the use of the 911 tapes – the visuals were thin on the ground and the story failed to deliver.
Photostories need to use the power of each visual image to arrest the viewer. Lingering wide shots of buildings and long zooms on a broken door do little to support the emotional tension created by the narrator and the dramatic 911 calls. Where are the people? Who was the victim? How could this happen?
The story starts out like a whodunnit and then leaves the viewer flat after failing to deliver on expectations generated by the versimilitude of the photo story to the radio crime genre. There is no surprise in the fact that the victim plunged to his death trying to escape from the police while in a methodone induced haze.
Instead, we would rather that the narrative got to the point quicker. Focus on substantive issues like the role and drugs in this death.
Get the voices of the victim’s father(instead of closed captions), interview the police officers or Internal Affairs wrt whether the case was correctly handled and whether they believe the situation could have ended differently.
Is this a case of great audio narrative (the 911 tapes) getting in the way of telling a more substantive story? Any takers?
Nice commentary, Jude. Thanks for posting it.
If the visuals had been more interesting, would the length have been acceptable? Or did your students feel that it was just too long, regardless?
I don’t think that it is too long at all… I think that the story it’s strong enough. Talking about the use of the images I’ve seen this short of effect in TV documentaries when it is not easy to shoot new material because, for example, is a history film. I don’t think is bad although if you repeated it in every image it’s boring. The photos are dull but I think that dullness can, in a way, carry the viewer to the plain and lonely scenery of the hotel. On the other hand I must admit that I like some of it but not everything because some of the 911 does not add anything really important and are repetitive. I would have use, as Jude Mathurine suggests some other sources.
NML’s preference when audio photo slides are output as WMV from Photostory 3(particularly in bandwidth scarce contexts like Africa) is to keep it to a maximum of three minutes.
In the case of soundslides unless both the audio and visuals are compelling and advance a central narrative, we advise students to re-edit and advance stories to an optimum length (which may exceed the standard maximum)
Some early student work at our National Arts Festival can be found here. The photostory previews three street theatre items
http://cue.ru.ac.za/video/national/street-theatre-revue. The item was made up in Photo Story 3 as a WMV.