Ah this program is tricky to learn. Also, an error seems to have occurred with some of my fellow Knight fellows’ blogs. Too much time on Dreamweaver has made me think that perhaps this is my fault. Hopefully that is not the case.

Check out my project! It includes the full story I wrote about Galilee Baptist Church and has my Soundslides embedded into it.

Bristolian photographer Nick Hand, whose work may look familar to Howies customers, recently finished a tour of the UK coast line by bike, stopping off with designers, artisans and various crafts folk along the way. His encounters are reproduced via the soundslide format here and are worth watching for insights from Paul Smith, Freshwest and Aardman amongst others.

Gail Albert Halabam/ NY Times

I stumbled across this unique story in the New York Times about what it’s like to live in a stack of apartments in New York City, while observing the people who live on top of you, below you, and right outside your window. I liked the story, but I really enjoyed the slide show. The photos are beautiful and it’s really well done. When you go through life seeing the same people every day — people you don’t talk to — it’s so easy for them to sometimes become… less real, if that doesn’t sound too horrible. It is as if they are just another component of your day, just a familiar face along the way. But I think this story sort of helps remind us that we all have our own things to do, our own lives to live. And just watching people for a short while lets us learn a whole lot about them.

Using SoundSlides takes practice. Now I think I’ve got it!
For this project, the sound was mixed using GarageBand, the photos were taken with a Canon 30D and Rebel XTI and the images edited using PhotoShop. If I want to hand this project over with my story to get a multimedia package published, I’ll probably have to re-do the slide show using the real deal instead of the demo.
I hope this can reach a wider audience, in which case this would be a sneak peak… enjoy the bus ride!
You know you remember the song…

Click on title image or here to go to SoundSlides presentation.

Here’s the Soundslides presentation for my story on Galilee Baptist Church and the work they are doing in their community after the church was burned to the ground three years ago. Galilee was one of nine rural churches that fell victim to arson in 2006.

Galilee Baptist Church — Soundslides Presentation

After a long day of history homework, finishing a theory critique, and editing a Soundslides project in the 301 lab, I have crawled into the warm refuge of my bed, peacefully listening to the beautiful sounds of the website Folk Songs for the Five Points — http://www.tenement.org/folksongs/client/

I know Dr. Lowrey showed us this site in class the first week of media production tools (I actually can’t believe how long ago that feels now. It’s hard to believe this semester has happened as quickly as it has), but I wanted to revisit it, because I’ve found myself revisiting this site several times.

This is truly an innovative way of digital story telling. The main page is a map of New York City’s Lower East Side. There are five points that are highlighted on the map, but you can drag them to wherever you like. Each point features a sound — whether it’s an elderly resident sharing her story, a leaking fire hydrant, a folk artist strumming a guitar, or a family-owned deli — that actually do come from those locations on the map.

This is one of a few Folk Songs projects created in association with the Tenement Museum’s Digital Artists in Residents Program (http://www.tenement.org/prog_darp.html). I’ve also discovered sound maps of five different cities in Portugal and one of Manchester, England.

The ultimate goal is to explore immigration. Their goal, as the Folk Songs for the Five Points site says, isn’t to provide answers, but to “celebrate the unexpected richness that confronts you at every turn.”

And Folk Songs encourages interaction on their site. They want to know if people have any sound recording to contribute, or ideas for recordings if they lack the equipment. They also allow people to save their own mixes they’ve created, and a list of some of their favorites are in a link under the “Get Involved” tab.

This site does not indicate that these are professional journalists running it, or anything, or that they are seeking to uphold any journalistic standards in their storytelling. This isn’t a place where you’ll find hard-hitting journalism, but its goal is simply to tell the stories of the people around us, which I think it accomplishes effectively.

While this site does focus on sound — which, when you think about it, isn’t usually the way we observe a culture, by simply listening to it—  it does incorporate some visual aspects. When you click on the points across the map, an image will show up on the right side bar with a bit of information about the location. One thing they do very well is the diversity in the sounds they collect. Also, they don’t have regulated times for each of the sound clips. Some are longer than others, to give each sound “its own pulse.”

If only we could do this in Tuscaloosa. And I say that with all seriousness. I would love to delve into a project like this. Imagine sounds of students on the Quad, interviews with people riding the Tuscaloosa Trolley, plates heavy with miraculous food being set onto tables at the Waysider, the wind brushing through the trees by the Black Warrior River, a train chugging through the middle of town, and locals browsing for fresh fruits and vegetables at the farmers markets.

I think the Folk Songs Project has found a truly inspiring way to capture the beauty and the diversity of culture and society. And I think doing a project like this in Tuscaloosa would reveal to so many people how unique the culture is here.

I took on the challenge of some of the COM students to figure out a way to embed Soundslides into their WordPress.com blogs. At first, I didn’t think it could be done. After all, Soundslides’ site says so. But then I noticed something new that WordPress was promoting called VodPod. It allows you to insert your own embed code so I thought I would give it a try. It works! The video I got didn’t have the play button included, but it plays when you click on it so it is functional.

Creating the code for your embed (create this in Notepad for copy/paste later):

1. Go to http://students.washington.edu/username/publish_to_web/small.html. (This will go to the smaller version of your presentation, which will fit into WordPress.)
2. Click View > Source.
3. Copy everything between the <object> tags (including the object tags) and paste into Notepad.
4. Copy the video url and end with the folder name (so without the small.html at the end). So http://students.washington.edu/username/publish_to_web/
5. Paste into your Notepad code in the two places before “soundslider.swf”

Using Vodpod to post to WordPress:

1. Drag the “Post to WordPress” button to your toolbar: http://vodpod.com/wordpress/
2. Go to the url with your Soundslides presentation: http://students.washington.edu/username/publish_to_web/small.html
3. Click “Post to WordPress” from your toolbar.
4. Click “Click if you’re having trouble” below the preview screen. (This will allow you to paste the embed code manually.)
5. Paste everything from your Notepad document into the box.
6. Fill in the rest of the blanks (blog url, username, password) and click Publish.

That’s it!

Politico’s Multimedia page is lacking.

Sure there are a lot of videos and photo galleries, but they’re lacking in something that’s so important to today’s multimedia journalism!

THE AUDIO SLIDESHOW!!!

They have countless videos, photo galleries that are updated weekly, but only 8 Audio Slideshows.

And look at some of their slideshow topics:

Some of these topics are old and outdated. Politico has made only 8 slideshows and never updates this section!

That seems so bizarre to me because the audio slideshow is so popular in the journalism world and it’s such a powerful medium.

All of Politico’s slideshows were made using Sounslides, which all multimedia and photojournalism students learn today. It’s such and easy program that there is no reason Politico shouldn’t be utilizing it.

So I have a proposal to Politico: Hire me to make your Audio Slideshows!!! You really have nothing to lose by hiring me.

…wow I didn’t know it could be this easy to get a job after college. If Politico needs multimedia people then think of all the other news sites that need them too. The future is looking brighter everyday!

I made my first all-Flash audio slide show last night, and realized very quickly that I have been spoiled rotten by Soundslides. I am deeply in the habit of laying down my audio then shuffling around the photos as I please – adjusting durations and adding new photos with a few effortless mouse clicks. A two-minute story like I did last night would take me 30 minutes, tops. Building it myself from scratch in Flash took me about six hours.

Handmade paper casts by Mary Samboethe - click to watch the audio slide show that took me much longer than necessary to create.

Granted, this was my first attempt, so I was less than efficient. And there was a point when the program would crash every time I tried to import my audio file. But what was most frustrating to me was how difficult it was to change the order of my photos or replace them with new ones. Sure, there is a “swap symbol” option, but each image has a several keyframes (for transitions) and you have to do that for each one. There has to be a better way of doing this than we were taught in EPJ class, and I am going to figure it out.

In the meantime, there is a Soundslides component for Flash that allows you to use a lot of the functionality of the program, but customize the appearance of the player. I have not used this very extensively yet – only a quick demo in class – but I will investigate and get back to you with pros and cons.

Ol’ Soundslides may be ugly. And yes, it may be limiting at times. But by golly, be grateful because it does all of the tedious bits  and the hard parts (ahem, actionscripting) for you.

As part of my digital portfolio class, we were required to create slide shows in various different programs to find ones that we either liked or did not like. Some involved using music while others were just a gallery type set up.
Soundslides was one of the programs that created an audio based slide show with fades and movement.

AJ

I was recently hired as a social media consultant for the University School of Nashville’s annual fundraising art show, artclectic. This four-day art experience is the main fundraiser for the high school, but lacked a presence on social media Web sites. For the past month, I’ve helped artclectic build a following on Facebook and Twitter and created a Soundslides project that has been posted on artclectic’s Web site, www.artclectic.org (scroll down to see it).

Audio slide shows. They truly are one of the most innovative and exciting photojournalistic ideas to date. With the ability to mix the depth of still images and the intensity of a subject’s voice narrating the presentation, they give a fresh new feel to viewing photojournalism online. As they are fairly easy to create with programs like Soundslides many photojournalists seem to be jumping on the bandwagon in creating these little masterpieces, but many of them are not succeeding. In terms of synchronization one must ensure that the timing of the transitions is at equal pace allowing the images and audio to work well together in delivering the story. Here are some amazing pieces I found entailing a collection of online essays in the Middle East courtesy of Christopher Anderson a photojournalist working for Magnum Photos.

Underneath is a particular favourite of mine from Magnum Photos about the war in Lebanon. Just click on the first link to play and it will open in a separate window.

September 12, 2009::Barbara Zucchi’s House:: 15 ladies:: 3 Mah Jongg Sets::Let the games begin!!!

Click the photo for slideshow:

Recall that during our multimedia training program your finished projects will be limited to 90 seconds. That might sound too short, but it’s actually a very good length — even I get fidgety after about a minute and a half of watching an online video or slideshow, and I spend hours upon hours (eight, 10?) each day in front of a computer.

Here’s an example of the value of brevity. Watch this video profile of speedskater Katherine Reutter. It’s published at news-gazette.com (embed code not available):

http://news-gazette.com/video/special_reports/champaigns_reutter_aims_for_olympics/

Right around the 1:18 mark the video takes a turn for the worse. Had it ended at 1:17, it would have been a nice piece, clearly focused on Reutter’s attempt to qualify for the Olympics. But a second later, the video morphs into a story about her relationship with her sponsor, the Champaign Police Department. This changes the focus, confuses the viewer as to what the story is about, and extends the video for another minute, almost doubling the length.

So, remember: Keeping your projects to 90 seconds forces you to edit down to the bone. Its forces you to master the first task of editing: knowing what to cut and what to keep. And you can do that only if you know what your story is about. This is called focus, and it requires you to be merciless in the cutting room.

Let’s use this post as an “idea bank” for multimedia stories — that is, a place where we deposit ideas for video and audio slideshow projects. Here are a few suggestions for starters. Please contribute yours in the comments section.

• Ellnora Festival at Krannert this week (Sindha and Will are doing this) 
• Pygmalion Music Festival next week (Sindha and Will are also doing this)
• Uni students volunteer at Center for Women Transition, Sept. 12 (Hadley, Danny, Katherine are doing this)
• WILL oral history project (Maritza, Laura, Anna are doing this)
• Friday night at Skateland
• Friday night at _____ (fill in the blank)
• Saturday morning at the Urbana Farmers Market
• Food co-op (How does it work? Who from Uni is involved? Mr. Bild goes to an Amish farm each Saturday to pick up eggs for the co-op) 
• Biking as alternative transportation
• Down Syndrome Buddy Walk (Saturday, Oct. 24 — Ellen Lindsey and her son, Joey, are involved)
• Who needs to own a car? Getting around town using the Zip Car program
• Helping out at the weekly food pantry at Wesley United Methodist Church
• Teen Awareness Group/Planned Parenthood
• In the kitchen of your favorite restaurant
• A night out with a pizza delivery dude
• On patrol with the Champaign Police Department or the U of I Police
• Michelle Mehnert: Life as a college athlete (she swims for the U of I)
• Michelle Mehnert: Life as triathlete (she’s qualified for a world championship triathlon)
• U of I gymnastics: Meet your neighbors at Kenney Gym
• Greta Goldbart and her band
• Other Uni students who have bands
• Concerts at the IMC (I believe Loic H is involved in organizing IMC shows)
• Interesting community service projects that Uni students are involved in
• ExploraVision
• Inventors Club
• Music club recitals
• Uni chess team, defending state champs
• Uni jazz band or madrigals
• Uni musicians involved in solo performance or outside orchestras
• Uni artists at work, talking about their art
• Fashionplates (clothes)
• Fashionplates (glasses)
• Fashionplates (shoes)
• The story behind locker decorations
• Interesting Uni clubs (only ones that have visual potential)
• College app process (talk to Lisa Micele about potential video ideas)
• Life in a sorority
• Life in a fraternity
• Profile of a top Uni athlete
• The culinary artistry of Mr. Garvey (former chef)
• The rocketry hobby of Mr. Smith

Well, by a conservative count, I just gave you 41 multimedia ideas. If you do the math, you’ll see that our 12 weeks of multimedia training will result in 36 published projects (three per week). So I’ve given you more ideas than you’ll need for this semester. Now, come on, you can do even better than that! What are some other possibilities? Remember, we’ll have all of spring semester to work on projects as well.

Next week we’re going to enter an ambitious phase of this class, perhaps the most ambitious in the 15 years that I’ve been at Uni High. We’re going to begin a multimedia training program in which each student will co-produce two audio slideshows and two videos. Here is a summary of the program:  

• We will have three training cycles during the fall semester.
• Each training cycle will last four weeks.
• Three teams will participate in each cycle.
• Each team will consist of two or three students.
• By early December all students will have completed one cycle, with each student co-producing two audio slideshows and two videos.
• Each project will be published. 

Here is what a training cycle will look like:

WEEK 1

• Team A: Soundslides project
• Team B: Video project with “big” camera
• Team C: Video project with Flip camera

WEEK 2

• Team A: Soundslides project
• Team B: Video project with Flip camera
• Team C: Video project with big camera

WEEK 3

• Team A: Video project with big camera
• Team B: Soundslides project
• Team C: Soundslides project

WEEK 4

• Team A: Video project with Flip camera
• Team B: Soundslides project
• Team C: Soundslides project

Here’s what the training cycles look like in chart form. For some reason, the text turned a little blurry when I uploaded this image, but you’ll get the picture:

Here are the teams for each training cycle. We will start with senior editors, then work our way through junior editors and first-year students:

CYCLE 1 (Sept. 14-Oct. 9)

• Team A: Sindha, Will
• Team B: Danny, Hadley, Katherine
• Team C: Laura, Maritza, Anna

CYCLE 2 (Oct. 13-Nov. 6)

• Team A: Elizabeth, Stephanie
• Team B: Revathi, Katy
• Team C: Eleni, Kahlilah

CYCLE 3 (Nov. 10-Dec. 11)

• Team A: Jenny, Mohammad, Nikita
• Team B: Nancy, Eunjung
• Team C: Eric, Kevin, Luke

Here are a few ground rules about this training program:

• The final version of each project must be limited to a maximum of 90 seconds. If you finish your project early and want to do a second one using leftover material, that’s up to you. The purpose of limiting your final versions to 90 seconds is to teach you editing discipline. This is how you learn to tell a story, by developing a clear focus and then cutting your material to the bone. Nothing in the final product should be superfluous. 

• This means that when you are shooting video, you should limit your a-roll interviews to five to 10 minutes tops, and your b-roll footage to about 15 minutes. Your a-roll and b-roll footage combined should not exceed 20 to 25 minutes. Quick digression: What is a-roll and b-roll? Footage of talking heads is known as “a-roll,” while footage of people doing things is “b-roll.” A good video shows lots of b-roll footage while a-roll audio is playing. In other words, you don’t want to show long, extended shots of people just talking.

• If you are putting together a Soundslides project, you should limit your interview audio to five to 10 minutes and your natural sound to about three minutes. You should limit your photos to 150 to 200 shots. In a 90-second slideshow, you are only going to use about 30 photos at the most. 

• The only audio permitted in each Soundslides project and video will be the words of the interviewees and natural sound. In other words, no narration will be permitted. This ground rule will help you to develop your interviewing and editing skills. If you ask the right questions, your interviewees will say everything you need for a good story. But they probably won’t deliver the comments to you in a nice, neat package, so that’s where your editing skills come in. You must be able to identify their key statements and then put them in a logical, coherent order so they will flow smoothly. The same goes for integrating natural sound into the audio.

• I recommend that you gather the raw material for your projects the weekend before each new project. You’ll need about two hours maximum to gather your material — i.e., to shoot video or take photos and gather audio. If you do that on the weekend, you will be able to devote all your class time to editing, which is the most challenging and rewarding part of any project.

• Planning is crucial to the successful completion of your projects. Therefore, you must decide on the subject of your next project by the Wednesday before you are scheduled to work on it. In other words, if you are scheduled to do a video during the week of Sept. 14-18, you must decide on the subject by Wednesday, Sept. 9. If you are unable to come up with an idea, I will supply one.

• Many of your multimedia stories will take place in locations throughout Champaign-Urbana. They do not have to be filmed or photographed at Uni. While a clear Uni angle is preferable, your stories do not have to feature Uni people. As long as you can make the case that your stories are about topics of interest to a Uni audience, that’s good enough.

• Before you go out to gather your video or take your photos and gather audio, I (and Amanda Hartman, if her schedule permits) will meet with you to go over the basic operation of cameras and recorders.

• When you shoot video, you must use a tripod. I will supply you with one.

• When you record audio, you must use a microphone. I will supply you with one. 

• When you operate your video camera or audio recorder, you must wear headphones. I will supply you with a set.

• When you edit your video or audio, you must also wear headphones. I will supply you with a set.

• To edit your video, you will use Final Cut Express. I will give you handouts that contain basic directions on how to use the software. I will give you one-on-one instruction when you have questions. Amanda Hartman will also help as her schedule permits.

• To put together your Soundslides project, you will use GarageBand and Soundslides Plus. I will give you handouts that contain basic directions on how to use the software. I will give you one-on-one instruction when you have questions. Amanda Hartman will also help as her schedule permits.

If you follow my instructions on the maximum amount of raw material you should gather and the maximum length of your final videos and slideshows, you will be able to finish your projects by the end of class each Friday. More importantly, you will develop your skills as a storyteller in ways that will help you no matter what medium you work in.

Good luck, and have fun!