Soundslides: life on UF family housing

My first Soundslides is not a great package, because many of the photos are not very well- exposed or well-composed. But still I’m happy about the final outcome, because I learned a lot and did my best.

After seeing the final outcome, I noticed what additional photos I could take to tell the story better. I also learned a lot about the importance of timing. Due to my lack of time because of a trip, I chose to take photos of my neighbors. This made me a bit shy about knocking at their door constantly to take photos at different settings. I also was struggling with the idea of making the story an aspect of campus life, instead of the profile of a family. In the end I think I could figure out, to some extent, how to overcome that challenge. I asked the subject of my interview lots of questions about her personal life and her life at family housing. I realized that many of the interesting things she said in the interview had to be removed, because they were not really about campus life. Had I included what she said about her personal life not relevant to campus life, then I would end up with a profile story. I tried to include just the parts that were about campus life.

So, here is the first slideshow with audio totally made by me, except for the Flash part which was done thanks to the great platform Soundslides offers us. Click on the image below to see my first work!

Sights and Sounds

As I move on in my Journalists’ Toolkit class and take more and more photos, I become more and more sensitive about things I’d never paid much attention to. One of them is angles and compositions of each frame in the films and TV programs I watch. Sometimes I, unconsciously, look at a video frame as a still photo. In the frames I like, I examine, very quickly, were the main subject of that frame is situated. I’m amazed to see that most often the rule of thirds applies to these video frames. The frames I like usually have a novel angle or composition. On some of the frames, I wish that for example part of the shot was not in the frame (was cropped?). I have also realized that there is some merit to TV programs that I don’t like at all, at least in terms of visuals and the composition of video frames. For example I never liked CSI Miami because of its unrealistic and sometimes childish stories. But I have recently become interested in the program, just because I like the composition of each frame in this program. Sometimes I think each frame of this program can make a beautiful photo!

The other issue that I have become sensitive about is the sounds in soundslides, films, radio, and TV programs. We had a good practice for the class two weeks ago to listen to and examine the use of sounds in two packages. One of the packages was “The Art of Listening,” a small soundslide that contained some recordings of Jesse Seay, one of the founder of “Your Favorite Chicago Sounds” audio archive. The soundslide has few photos. But what makes it interesting and in fact makes the title of the package relevant in my idea, is that the sounds come before the photos. You first hear the sound of a wolf, then you see photos of the wolfs in a zoo. You first hear the sounds of dolphins in an aquarium, then you see their photos. Each set of sounds put you on that location, without even seeing the photos of the location. This was an important lesson for me to learn how much a good and sharp nat sot can make a story more effective. I didn’t even need to see the photos to get a feeling about the zoo or the aquarium. Some of the frames of the slideshow are simply black, so you can even close your eyes and still feel the environment.

The other package that I had to listen to, which was an NPR program on Studying a Koala Mystery in Eastern Australia had the same effect on me. As Sonia has also mentioned, I had a feeling as if I am there in the jungles of Australia searching for Koalas! There was the sound of birds singing and the echo of their singing, mosquitoes, people walking on the grass (or bushes and leaves?), and even people’s voices with different pitches on the expedition. And the climax of the story for me was the end of it, were we could actually hear the sound of a Koala!

Now after these practices, I sometimes listen to the noises and sounds in my environment, wondering if what I hear can be a good nat sat for a story!

Having two audio recorders at the scene

NewsLab has collected some really good tips, offered by professional photojournalists, on how to gather audio. Part of the advice is related to the use of sound recorders. It was interesting for me that the article suggested using at least two audio recorders at the scene.

One sound recorder should be connected to either a wireless lav or a shotgun microphone, to get clear audio of the main subject we are interviewing or even just taking pictures of. This could have been very useful for me when I was taking photos of a couple and their child having dinner today. As I was taking photos of the family, we were chatting with each other, and they told some interesting things about who they are and what they do. They sounded so natural and comfortable, and I’m not sure if my future interview with them would sound as natural as today’s.

The article also suggests having a separate recorder on from the beginning of the photo shoot to the end, to grab the whole background sound. If I had an audio recorder on while I was taking the pictures, I could record the sound of the child’s crying. I have a cute picture of her crying, and it would be nice to complement it with the sound of crying. I don’t have the sound now, and I can’t record the sound of crying later due to the ethics of audio editing. Therefore, I have to go back and take another cute photo of the child’s crying!

I wish I had read the article before shooting the photos!

built-in or external microphone?

Hal Robertson has some recommendations for collecting natural sound or “nat sot” for video. Some of these recommendations apply to making slide shows as well, and some of them don’t. For example, we can’t use the built in microphone of a camera to record audio while we are taking pictures, because, obviously, the camera’s built-in microphone only works with video. However, his advice on the nature of the sound and its relevance to the video can be used in taking audio for slide shows as well.

As Robertson mentions, the process of gathering audio depends very much to the complexity of the type of sound we want to record. We can either use our built-in microphone of our sound recorder or an external microphone based on the subject of the audio. Robertson speculates that a high quality built-in microphone of the camera would be a good device for gathering background audio that complements the video footage. Similarly, my guess is that using the built-in microphone of our sound recorder would be better for collecting background sound, than using an external microphone. I think that way because a good external microphone records only the sounds close to it. In fact, a good microphone blocks out most of the surrounding sounds and therefore is great for interviews. However, if we want to grab a sense of the whole environment, the built-in sound recorder that records all its surrounding sounds would be a better option.

Robertson says:

If you shot the production footage, you know the environment of the scene and how close the subject was to background noisemakers. Using your ears as a guide, find a recording location that closely matches the original footage.

Does that mean we should use the external microphone but put it close to the main background sound that has been closer to the subject of our video/picture? What do you think about this? Have you ever had any experience with recording the background sound with both a built-in microphone and an external microphone? If yes, which one works better?