An Exercise in Listening

I listened to four reports from today's "All Things Considered" podcast on npr.org. I was surprised at how different they were from what I had expected.

After listening to the examples in class that featured piano movers and a ballgame beer seller, I had expected to hear relatively long interview clips and lots of scene-setting natural sound. I was waiting for the audio pieces that would paint the picture for me, make the story come to life. But those pieces never really came.

Instead, the reports were heavy on anchors' explanations and light on interviews and natural sound--the portions of an audio report I consider most interesting. For example, in a business story called "From Clunker to Cruiser, Ford Posts Quarterly Profit" (2:56), the anchors spoke almost the entire time, pausing briefly every now and then for quick interview sound bytes or the slightest amount of natural sound. But even the natural sound that was used didn't add significantly to the report: When the anchor mentioned trucks, the sound of passing cars played in the background. Similar sound played when the anchor mentioned another type of car.

Another business story I heard, "A Tale of Two Corporate Trends in Today’s Economy" (3:12), was even less like the examples we heard in class. After a brief introduction to the topic, the anchor welcomes his guest and proceeded to interview him for the duration of the report. I would be glad to hear longer portions of an interview, but the interview-in-its-entirety approach seemed less polished than a package combining anchors' reporting, interviews, and natural sound.

"Chairman Mao: An Unlikely Business Guru" (6:13) did a better job of using the different elements of audio reporting. After a short introduction, the anchor moved to a reporter on the scene in China. The background street noise while the reporter was speaking and the sounds of a cheering, chanting crowd helped paint that picture I was waiting to see.

After listening to these three reports, I began to think I was just choosing the wrong type of report. These had all been serious stories that don't necessarily scream "audio." So for the fourth report, I selected a story I thought I could expect to be driven by natural sound: "What Did I Do with My Violin?" (3:48).

But I was disappointed again. The report centered on the anchor interviewing a psychotherapist about the tendency of musicians to lose their instruments. And that nice natural sound I was expecting? It didn't show up until the last few seconds of the report.

Listening to these reports underscored the importance of natural sound in making a story come alive for a radio audience. Like the super-tight shot in still photography and the carefully placed details in a print article, capturing and using good natural sound seems to be the key to producing a compelling audio package.

Kids will be Kids

In the course of studying hundreds of images in and out of class over the last few weeks, I noticed that photos of children seem to be especially interesting.

Sure, anyone can have a funny expression on his face, but kids tend to have the funniest expressions. And anyone has the potential to be good interview material, but kids often seem more natural on video than even the most at-ease adults. So when I wanted a back-up plan for my final project, I went to a local elementary school.

My starting point? Lots of kids in matching uniforms at a special two-hour program in the middle of the school day. There would even be a birthday cake at the end of the program for the kid turning seven to share with his classmates. I was pumped.

I was counting on the kids being cute and funny and interacting with each other naturally.

What I didn't count on were the two or three kids whose greatest desire, it seemed, was to be caught on camera. They waved, they threw themselves in front of the screen, they made faces. And they ruined a lot of otherwise perfectly good footage.

So my list of things to keep in mind while filming got a bit longer: Hold the camera steady, use backgrounds that add to the story, shoot sequences of wide, medium and tight shots...and avoid camera-hungry kids.

At Least You'll Make Better Home Videos...

When we completed the video portion of our non-print media course a few weeks ago, Nina said that even if we never used our new skills professionally, we'd at least be able to make better home videos.

It's too early to say whether I'll use my early video journalism experiences in my career, but I'm definitely approaching home videos in a more sophisticated way.

Over the last week or so, my mother has been putting together a digital slide show with photos of just about every family member in our family tree (and there are a lot of leaves on our tree). After experimenting with different audios over the still shots, she realized that with the right timing, she could create a nice effect by matching certain photos with certain bits of music.

And so it came to be that a close-up of my grandma pops up on the screen to the words "then I saw her face" from The Monkees' "I'm a Believer." And a few seconds later, which words from that song are playing when my grandparents' wedding photo comes up? "I'm in love," of course.

Though I can't take credit for what is to certainly be a savvier home video, at least I appreciate the way it's being created.

And maybe when it's time for the next family slide show project, I'll take a more active role in the production.

Of Portraits & Profiles

This week I discovered my favorite type of photography: portraits.

I like the clear objective in taking a portrait. You find what stands out about a person, how they spend their time, what they absolutely love to do. Then you find a way to show them in that light.

As much as I like the clarity, though, I also like the flexibility that comes with taking portraits. The subject can be looking at the camera or looking in another direction. He can be smiling, or serious, or moody. You want to photograph only their hands? Okay, go for it. Just their feet? No problem.

I also find it interesting that portraits, unlike other types of photographs, can be posed and still turn out well. Over the past few weeks, as I hunted for worthwhile photos on and off campus, I found myself almost wishing I could just pose a couple of people to capture what I had in mind. Fortunately, the temptation wasn't all that great. After all, a posed photo is a posed photo. It doesn't look good-- it looks stupid.

But a posed portrait can look great.

In my print classes and on assignment as a freelance reporter, I've particularly enjoyed writing profiles. Basically, then, all I need is to write a strong profile and photograph a creative portrait to go with it, and I'm one happy camper.

I've Already Got a Favorite

When the National Cherry Blossom Festival begins on Saturday, dozens of photographers will find their way to the Tidal Basin to capture it on camera. There will be tourists, eager for the perfect Washington-in-the-spring shot. And there will be professionals, serious about photographing the blossoms and their visitors.

Hundreds--if not thousands--of images will be made before the festival ends on April 13, but I've already found my favorite cherry blossom photo. (It's the ninth in the Washington Post's slide show from the 2006 festival:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/gallery/070305/GAL-07Mar05-67023/index.html.)

For me, it was love at first sight. Really, what could make a sweeter cherry blossom photo than a pair of little girls in pink flowery dresses reaching out to touch the pink flowers by the water? Read the caption, and it gets even better: The girls are 3-year-old twins.

I love that they're so absorbed in touching the blossoms that they don't notice they're being photographed, and I love that the Post's Arianne Starnes made the image with the girls on the right side of the frame instead of the center. I'm not quite sure what the photo's subject is--the girls or the cherry blossoms--and I like the fact that it could be either, or maybe both.

I only wish I took it myself.

Looking Through That Lens

I tried to see my life through a camera lens this week.

My typical day includes driving to and from campus, working in the office of a children's magazine, and eating dinner with my parents and younger siblings. These things seem so terribly ordinary that I wondered if there was any potential for a truly good photograph.

I thought that if I could get past holding the camera at eye-level and try some unusual angles, I might make a worthwhile image. So I experimented...and found that some photos I took were okay, some were bad, and some were just weird.

Next, I tried photographing events that were a bit out of the ordinary: a friend's wedding and the high school play I attended this week. There was plenty of material at the wedding, but there were also plenty of barriers to good photography. For one thing, the professional photographers got all the good spots. There was also the problem of working around so many wedding guests-- someone seemed to cross in front of me at all the wrong moments.

The play also presented special challenges. There was awful lighting in the area we waited in before entering the auditorium, and I couldn't get nearly as close as I would have liked to the stage without disturbing the performance.

Is it better to look for creative angles in an ordinary situation, or to photograph things that are naturally exciting?

I'm still not sure.

A Compelling Story? It's a Start.

"High School Confidential," a documentary that tells a dozen teenage girls' stories, premiered this week on We TV. The stories are by no means boring-- one girl talks about her anorexia, another about her cousin's death, a third about her experiences fighting a brain tumor. You'd think material like that would make for a pretty compelling show.

But in the Washington Post's review, Laura Sessions Stepp writes that "they [the girls] don't engage us, and that's not their fault. Their stories don't move us largely because of how they were shot and edited."

I wouldn't have understood this in quite the same way had I read the review a few weeks ago. But after beginning to study video journalism and filming a few short videos of my own, I know that it's possible to have a strong story but a disappointing video.

In the print world, a powerful quote is pretty much all you need. It doesn't matter whether the person had a funny look on her face when she said it, it doesn't matter if the lighting was poor during the interview, and it certainly doesn't matter if your hand wasn't perfectly steady while she was speaking.

But that just isn't the case with video.

When you produce a video, you're looking at the whole picture. Yes, you want those strong quotes. But you also want smooth footage. You want decent weather, so a serious story doesn't become ridiculous because the interview subject is getting drenched by the rain. You don't want the roaring of fire engines driving or the beeping of car horns or just about any other distraction in the background.

The extra challenges make video journalism that much harder to get a handle on. But they also make it that much more rewarding when you've done a good job.