photography assignment

Interactive Audio Slideshow Assignment
DUE Oct. 1

A. Photographing UNI

In teams of two, your assignment is to capture, with a photographer's eye, life at UNI: we'll discuss themes, and you'll be assigned one of them. If you don't have a camera, you can check one out in the Communication Office, Lang 326. Hand in 10 images (you will take many more) that are aesthetically grounded according to the guidelines discussed in class. Together, watch the numerous interactive audio slideshows (listed below) for inspiration.

Make sure you take detailed notes regarding each image you take, and think ahead about caption potential. If you interview students, professors, staff... make sure you accurately record their names and get their permissions: you may end up posting your images online.

B. Audiotaping UNI

Using a digital recorder (4 are available for checkout in the Communication Office, Lang 326), record sounds from the sites your capture: gather "Ambient Sound," "Natural Sound" and Interviews (think constantly about the sound that can accompany your images, and keep a log of all the items you record). You can also write a Voice Over and record that as well, to be integrated into the edited audio piece.

C. Editing the Audio.

Edit your Audio using Garage Band, Audacity, or another audio-editing tool at the Production House into a brief (40-second to 1-minute) narration track. Don't include music unless there was music playing as part of the natural sound backdrop. The audio file should be short enough so that your photos fit comfortably in the audio timeframe, allowing readers to read your captions without rushing. You must save your audio as an .mp3 file. Garageband in Lang Hall allows you to choose Share/Export File to Mp3. However, if you have i-tunes you can also select your sound file (within i-tunes) and convert it right in there (choose Advanced/Convert Selection to MP3). You can also convert the file using media-convert. Use the Lang 212 lab to edit your audio if necessary (or download Audacity on your own computer). We’ll go over audio editing in class. Listen carefully to the audio in the slideshows (below) to better understand levels and tapering.

A few bits of info to help you with your audio edit. Remember, Soundslides ONLY ACCEPTS MP3 FILES.

1. If you choose to edit with Audacity, I'm attaching (to this email) the "Lame" library for you to install on your computer. When you want to export it as an MP3, you have to choose File/Export to MP3 and Audacity will ask you to locate the "Lame" file which again is in this email and you should put on your computer.

2. If you choose to edit within Garageband, some versions of Garageband allow you to Share/Export to Mp3. (the Garageband versions on the Lang 212 computers allow you to do that). Some earlier versions won't have that option. SO what you need to do is choose Share/Send Song to i-Tunes, and then in i-Tunes, select the "song" and then choose Advanced/Convert Selection to Mp3.

3. You could also put the song into Media-Convert.com to convert to Mp3.

4. Finally, if you're in Garage Band and you want to fade in or fade out your tracks (and you should), here is a video tutorial to show you how to click down the track that has the audio control points....
For more Garageband tutorials, of course, there are all the ones I provided for you here.

D. Building the Interactive Audio Slideshow

With your photographs and your completed .mp3 file, you're ready to build the slideshow.
Using the 10 best images you have, build a slideshow narrative complete with audio and captions. You will do this using the flash-based SoundSlides software, which you can download onto your computer (demo version is just fine for this project--you don't have to buy the software, but you will need to have a Flash Reader on your computer), OR you can go use the Soundslides software you downloaded in the lab.

We will demonstrate how to use SoundSlides in class; it is very user friendly and you shouldn't have problems with the software, but here is an additional tutorial if you need extra help. The challenge of this exercise is to make a slideshow that is compelling both in terms of visuals and storytelling.

Narrative. Your slideshow should be modeled after the slideshows we view in class (these are also prevalent in the New York Times multimedia section and in the interactive narratives website). Your images should have a narrative sequence that makes sense and even builds emotionally.

Captions: Keep the captions short, yet try to be a little poetic, try to WRITE WELL. Your captions must say something extremely worthwhile. Look again to the New York Times as a guide. Not every caption needs to even be an entire sentence, BUT, your captions should NOT duplicate what your photos are showing. They should let us learn something new, take us to another level in terms of understanding your subject matter. They should be well-written and NOT contain any typos.

Saving your Slideshow: Save your slideshow on a CD and bring it to class on the due date, when we will view it in class. LABEL YOUR CD WITH A SHARPIE. You need to save ALL the folders within your project on the CD to make the slideshow work (not just the .swf file). When all those folders are in one place, you activate the slideshow by opening up either the index.html file or the .swf file (marked with a little blue "f" in a circle). But you need all the other folders and files in that same folder saved on the CD, b/c the .swf file will draw upon them in playing back your slideshow. For example, in the image I'm attaching, I want to copy all of "Project 4" (I could have named the project anything, but here it's Project 4) onto a CD, so the CD will have all the accompanying folders.

You will be graded on your photography, your choice of photographic images, your narrative structure, creativity, caption writings, your followthrough on all aspects of this assignment, and the overall effectiveness of your slideshow presentation.

AUDIO SLIDESHOW BEST PRACTICES.

Available at the NYTimes Audio Slideshow website:

Check out:

17th Grandstand (panorama)

Blowing Off Steam

A Big Red Revival

Three Days With Fidel