Northern Short Course, Part III

Our all-day multimedia "shootout" at the Northern Short Course conference was challenging and invigorating. (See our NSC Part I and Part II blog entries below for more on the NSC.) We split up into groups of three people and headed to the Providence Children's Museum. The juggling act of recording audio, shooting pictures, and gathering personal information from the people we were photographing began!

 

We focused on several aspects of the museum but spent the majority of time in Ms. Lambe's educational class. She was teaching air pressure. I experimented by photographing and recording audio of her blowing up a balloon, and releasing it to fly across the room on a tether. Thoughts rushed through my mind: Which audio clips matched which images? Did I capture the best audio? Did I hold the recorder at the right distance from the subject's face?

 

When recording audio, minute details of the room were of great importance. Hard table and floor surfaces, placement of the microphone, and ambient sound became concerns. Periodically the three of us assessed what we had, and what we lacked.

 

The juggling act of pulling all the elements together continued during editing. We had gathered 40 minutes of recorded audio -- any more and we'd have too much audio to go through to make deadline. Editing the audio first helped us determine which images to use. What was the most vibrant, distinct audio clip? Listening to the audio at least 20 times, we made sure the balloon audio from Ms. Lambe's class was concise, clear and crisp. It synched with the photographs to create a step by step re-enactment of the air pressure lesson.

 

 

 

The air pressure lesson.

 

Our original focus changed due to the strong audio. Originally we wanted to focus on the water room, but we shifted focus to Ms. Lambe's classroom because of the strong balloon audio. It was then that I realized audio's impact; it has the ability to dictate the image selection and order.

 

Inside the water room.

 

Using Sound Forge editing software, we decided which combination of audio clips and photos were most effective. We fumbled through editing the sound and had fun testing various effects like "vibration" and "blur." We imported the photos and MP3 sound files into Soundslides, a very intuitive program. With a completed basic presentation at deadline, we relaxed for the first time. Everyone who participated in the "shootout" watched each other's presentations, and we were amazed at the multiple ways of telling the same story. I walked away with a new appreciation of the entire information gathering process -- from shooting, to gathering sound, to editing, packaging and publishing.

 

- Sara