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.