Housewarming Party
I wish to direct your attention to the new home of audio reporting done by the workshop I started at NYU's journalism department. It's The End of the Dial. Two pieces have been posted so far, each taking a different approach.
In addition to the critiques that were raised by our first attempt, a third has come up: several people said they really don't want to have to look at anything. They want to just download the audio to their iPods or, even if they're sitting at the computer, they want to do other things while listening, like make dinner or veg out on the couch.
In this case, there is information that gets alluded to in the narration, but not spelled out. Our hope is that by putting that information on the blog post, you'll be properly prepared for when the moment arrives. Does it work? Tell us.
In addition to the critiques that were raised by our first attempt, a third has come up: several people said they really don't want to have to look at anything. They want to just download the audio to their iPods or, even if they're sitting at the computer, they want to do other things while listening, like make dinner or veg out on the couch.
In this case, there is information that gets alluded to in the narration, but not spelled out. Our hope is that by putting that information on the blog post, you'll be properly prepared for when the moment arrives. Does it work? Tell us.
posted by DO at 5:39 PM
1 Comments:
Hi Dean,
I was thinking of you over the last few days, and came wandering through to see what you are up to.
The audio experiments caught my interest. One of the things to possibly experiment with is the timing of the titles. If they had a more regular rhythm, the listener might develop a sense of what to expect for each individual piece.
In a book, the chapters are often similar lengths, and we learn to expect that a chapter will last 4 pages, or 10, or 20. On a website, we develop a sense of what's coming next through consistent navigation, consistent page design. The more familiar we are with the format, the more we focus on the message rather than the medium itself.
What I found in watchlistening to these pieces is that when there was a long lag between titles, I started to wonder if there will be more titles, and when. Now? How about now? There must be one coming soon ... When I lapsed into wondering about that, my focus was drifting off of the story itself, and I was more focused on the process. If a regular interval had been established, that might have been avoided.
I would like to see a background color that is less saturated than the bright yellow or orange ones used. I know that potentially contradicts the other advice to use a color other than black. What I'm struggling with is whether the format encourages me to look at the bright colors (I am a moth, at heart) instead of encouraging me to paint my own mental images when I listen to the story.
I like the idea of using one or two word captions like stage directions. "Tears" That pushed me into the direction those mental images should take.
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