(This is my fourth blog entry for my fall semester J2150 class.)
Before J2150, I had never been aware that journalists like to combine their photos with audio in order to create a really unique multimedia piece. I’m sure I’d seen it somewhere before, but I was much more used to traditional video recordings combined with voiceovers. When I saw these combos of audio recordings and photography, I was blown away. The images, combined with recorded interviews from the subject of these photos, could take you to the setting so that you were with the subject. This is exactly what we are being taught, that this nontraditional form of multimedia can be used in really creative ways to get closer to the story and be moved, touched, and impacted by the story.
The best example of this I saw during lecture last week was a startlingly crisp and cool series of photos (and some video) combined with an interview with a man who crafts his own motorcycles. He describes why and how he makes them as we are shown ultra tight photos of the motorcycle parts and his hands interacting with them. Then it switches to short, choppy videos of him riding one of his motorcycles through a picturesque, mountainous and slightly barren landscape. The visuals are stirringly beautiful but still low-key and simple in color and content, and the addition of the motorcycle builder’s voice layered with the photos of the bikes, the mountains and his own face create an impactful and riveting ride through a moderately unexplored combination of media.
Hannah Black 