The other day I did an experiment using the program Soundslides. I wanted to test their tagline, “ridiculously simple storytelling.” So, I grabbed photos off flickr, wrote a script, recorded myself and then threw them into this program. I gave myself two hours and surprisingly enough, it was finding the photos online that took the most time. Click on the photo below to see what I came up with.
In the People of Praise, folks always talk about ways to be more present to each other. Being a mass communication major, I’m interested in how people can be more present to more people, especially those far away. To add to this, I want to find a way to communicate to a lot with a minimal amount of production time. The rule of thumb for video is an hour of editing for a minute of film. People simply don’t have that time. People can write magazines and write blogs to become more present to others but, believe me you’re probably the 1 in 10 that actually read this paragraph instead of just clicking the link above. People aren’t reading things. On the flip side, people do have time to take pictures and they like watching videos. So not only do I think that soundslides is something simple enough to make, but its also cool enough to watch. I’d like to know what others think. Is this an efficient method of communication? What are the possibilities?
Whoa! I love this idea. You’re right about the editing, and I guess I am the one in ten that actually reads the paragraph! God Bless Teej
Hey Teej! This is awesome!!! I agree that people like to look at pictures more than read blog entries, or at least that’s what I like to do (though I did read your paragraph…). And I’m more inclined to put up a bunch of pictures than enter a long thoughtful post. For the purpose of making our lives more present to each other through brief, efficient, effective, and creative! updates, I think this is great! Not only do you get images, but a cohesive narrative in words-which by the way is really well done-that communicates even more…
I like the pictures. I like the cohesion of the words and the pictures. I like hearing your voice.
The cost that you’re asking people to pay, though, is time. Time is a scarce resource and I have very little patience for things that either waste my time, or even just force me to take a set amount of time. Video and audio demand a fixed amount of time from the consumer.
Writing and pictures are still the best way to convey information while still leaving the consumer in control of their time. I read your entire post above, but I did it in 25 seconds.
It may be the case that people are reading less and less, but I read, or at least scan, a lot. Just to get an idea of how much I read, I spent 20 minutes going through my RSS reader and read 8034 words (32 pages at 250 words/page). That’s 96 pages/hour.
Well, I liked watching it, but I like flipping through pics with captions more. I like figuring out the story for myself, rather than having someone else craft it for me. I also agree with Jeremy that I like being in control of my time. I can quit the pics anytime, but with a video I usually watch to the bitter (or in your case, sweet) end. Maybe if it was your story of something you did, I’d want to hear you tell it, but this was more of an editorial. Pics with longer captions would still be my first choice, I think.
Keep up the experimenting; I learn from you.
TJ Ryan: the future face of POP channel 3:16 broadcasting
Nicely done, TJ. I’ve seen some of those photos, in V&B on blogsites, and on flickr. I enjoyed the quick story behind while watching the slides. I personally think this is a good way to capture the summary of a big event, summer’s work, semester efforts, etc. A daily/weekly/monthly post may be challenging from a time perspective, though. Margaret’s point about scrolling through pictures only that she was interested in makes sense. But, if nothing else — making slide w/audio capture does, at least periodically, make sense. Send the link to other branch members to let them know what’s been going on, capture an archive of where we’ve been, note a longer stream of thought/intentions/bigger picture/story, rather than just a caption. Enjoyed it, keep up the good work, media extrordinaire.
nice job teej!