I have pretty mixed emotions with my final multimedia story. On one hand I’m happy with it because I know I put in effort, and it was my first attempt at anything of that nature, but on the other I’m disappointed. The audio was a little off and I couldn’t get the pictures I wanted for my revision.
I think that my topic was great, and I think that given the shots I had to work with, I did a good job asking questions that would relate. In comparison to my original photo story, I think the pictures were arranged in a better order. I still went with chronological because it felt natural to me to do it that way. I really wanted to open it up with a black screen and have Whiteman talking about the attack. The people I tested the story on felt it sucked you right in.
The biggest problem with the audio was the fading at the end of segments. In the editing process, I was unable to get rid of the fade in Moviemaker when linking pieces of the interview together. I chose Moviemaker after an attempt with Soundslides where I ended up at square one after an hour or so of toying with the program.
A smaller issue with the audio was the quality, which suffered due to the recording device. I used a small hand-held Sony I rented from the department, and didn’t like it too much. I had an Olympus until December (it was stolen from me) that would have done a better job.
In reflecting on this entire project, I think that if given a second opportunity, I would’ve settled on a subject that is geographically closer, and less busy! The guy’s life is insanely full of stuff he has to do, and matching my crazy schedule with his crazy schedule was a real challenge. And in full disclosure, I would’ve began collecting photos sooner than I did. I left myself a few weeks to do so, and instead a month or more would’ve led to a better result.
The experience itself was a good one though! It was cool putting this together, and I feel like have a handle on Moviemaker and Audacity, as well as more experience with Adobe Audition. It’s pretty cool to be able to take pictures and sound, combine the two, and have a (semi) polished product in the end. I feel that as long as I have a good subject, I could replicate the results with very little effort this time, and in the end construct something much better.
I’m glad I was assigned this project, and I’d reccommend it in the future, for sure.
