Motel Manor

This slideshow did a very good job of combining the narrative with natural sound and pictures. The pictures depicted what the people were talking about without being distracting or repetitive. The sound was good as well: I think it worked to have noises like someone knocking on the door and the baby crying, just to put the listener in the right mindset. It helped to set the scene for discussions about families and life in a motel. The overall tone was sort of depressed and hopeless, and I think that the audio and the photos helped to highlight that tone.


On Patrol with "America's Battalion"

This was another well put-together slideshow. I think that the background noises, the helicopters and shouts, etc. were essential to placing the audience in the context of the story. It was good to have a couple different people talking so that you had different viewpoints. I think that perhaps the most compelling part of this piece for me was when they were showing all the close-ups of the different people in the battalion. It just hit home that these are real people that the enemy is shooting at. It gave faces to the voices in a powerful way.

Progress Report on Audio Slideshow

So far, my group has met with our subject (Arika) for the slideshow two times. We had an interview with her and then met her for lunch in order to take more pictures.
The original interview was probably about fifteen minutes long, and we only took a few pictures. We were able to find out a lot of background information as well as some of the day-to-day life that she has.
The time that we met up for lunch was focused just on learning more about Arika and getting more pictures. We took probably about 25-30 pictures on this day, which will be very helpful.
My role in this project started with contacting Arika. My sister is her RA, so I was able to get her my contact information and set up the interview. I also took most of the pictures at the first interview and met up with her before going to lunch so that I could take pictures at her room and on the way over to Holloway Commons. I have continued to be the main contact person between our group and Arika.

The Mac
The Mac was a good slideshow: it had a good mix of audio and visual elements. I liked starting and ending with the kid reciting the poem, because it did a good job of sort of outlining what the slideshow was about. There was good natural sound in this piece as well: street sound and the sound of kids playing basketball, etc. helped to set the tone. For the most part, they did a good job of talking to a variety of people, but I think the interviewees were a little one-sided: this is a town where a lot of people don't appreciate the police presence, but we didn't hear from any of them.
For the most part, though, it was a very solid story.


The Battle of the Blondes
This was an interesting story. It did a good job of juxtaposing the live "Marilyn Monroe" with the wax figure. I thought it was great how the person talking about the wax figure always talked about it as if it were a person. (Saying things like "she does not need to be paid," etc.) It seemed like whoever did the interviewing asked some of the same questions about the wax figure as s/he did about the real person. This made their answers fit together very well so that we could compare and contrast them better. The pictures were also great: there were a wide variety of shots and camera angles, which helped to keep it interesting.


Royal's Legacy
In this story it was interesting to see how it can be effective to only have one person talking the whole time. It didn't need a narration, and the interview of the daughter was a great angle to take because she could talk about her past with her father as a child as well as his work with the shoe shining business. I think the pictures were great as well: lots of pictures of shoes and up-close shots of the tools used to shine them. This story also did a good job of using background noise: there was always a little bit of noise in the background just like you would hear out at a public place. It wasn't overwhelming, it just reminded you of the setting you were in.

Diamond in the rough
I enjoyed this slideshow. The pictures matched up well with the audio, and I think the reporter did a good job of mixing the natural sound with the narration of the main character. I think it worked well to give a little bit more information on the slides instead of saying those facts.
I think it could have been improved by giving a little more information about the coach. I was left wondering why he wakes up at 4am in his car: is he homeless? Where is the family he mentions? Overall, though, I enjoyed this.


A Hendrix experience
This slideshow was very well done. The subject of the story of course provided a lot of good sound since he played guitar, so that worked out well. There were a lot of interesting camera angles as well, which kept it entertaining. I enjoyed seeing all the different outfits that he would wear when playing.

Crabbing with the Hoopers
I think this story did a great job of using natural sound. It started and ended with the sound of running water, which is very appropriate for the story. The pictures, narration, and natural sound all matched up very well. one example of this is when Mark Hooper mentioned the dog and there was a picture of the dog and the sound of the dog whining. It just all flowed very nicely.

Service with Attitude
This was a good story. The subject of the story was very interesting, which made it him fun to listen to. The pictures did a nice job of showing the waiter in his natural environment, with customers, etc. I enjoyed the conversations between him and his customers as well. It was a good way to hear what actually went on at the Pantry instead of a reporter just trying to narrate things.