Writing for Print and Online Media

UMass Boston || English 307 || Fall 2014 || Prof. Erin Anderson

Author: elizabethanaya001

Titles! Whoa. (…s w e e t…)

December 2, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Mystic River

I live in Winter Hill, Somerville. That river is right down my drastically steep street. I know how Whitey Bulger used to haunt this town (and that epic article on WBUR really showed it). The remnants of the dark crimes of a gangster time are rooted into this setting. The title is a setting for a murder (and revenge) with a lot of information that is centered around the local culture. The geography of this area is important to the characters and the plotline. But it is a river. When you look at one, you can still only see the surface.

weareallgoingtoburninhellmegamixxx3

This album title is vastly different from the albums that surround it. Most of the others are made of two succinct words with a lot of sonic color. (Earlier titles: Fantastic Damage, The Cold Vein.) This is an instrumental remixed beat album. Everything on it is chaotic. The beat themes never last very long, but they run into each other. El-P is a pretty intense emcee, and this beat album is likewise intense. Fiery, even.

Anchorman

This title tells me nothing about Ron Burgundy…except that he is a man. It is an unlikely job position to come up in current conversation, but it’s not saying it’s funny. It doesn’t say anything about his mustache. Or his elocution exercises. It tells us nothing about his intimate affairs or anything about a romance. It definitely does not tell us that he’s a “glass case of emotion”. Ron will tell us that. He’d also tell us to stay classy!

Audio Feature!

October 27, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Jazz 365

October 17, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Jazz 365 @ Wally’s Cafe

Jad Abumrad

October 9, 2014 / / 0 Comments

JadAbumrad.com

The brief Bio is the main page on an iPad, but on a laptop computer, the first page is the subject’s name spelled out in floating pixel pieces on a white screen. Shows statistics about his show. First person speech. There is a cartoon of Jad Abumrad, the creator of a radio program called Radiolab. There is a Twitter feed on bottom with photos. The layout is very plain with very few graphic. Monochromatic, barely washed out.

Subpages are along the top:

Bio   Music   Radio   Speaking   Press   Contact

All the subpages are introduced with casual language
Music page: Soundcloud links, descriptions underneath them, scrolling screen in center of page, top bar remains static throughout

Radio page: embedded links to Radiolab full episodes with descriptions

Speaking: Tour schedule, font crossed out for events that have already taken place, gives a feeling of impermanence, or “catch-it-while-you-can”

Page is open to exploration. Every piece of creative product is easy to access. All the small descriptions frame the pieces of the website in a way that is inviting to the audience.
This site is professional and playful, which I hope to emulate soon.

 

 photo

Storytelling: Kindness of Strangers

September 30, 2014 / / 0 Comments

The piece begins with Ira Glass introducing the storyteller, who in turn introduces the story to the listener.

The way this episode uses music to convey parts of the story seems to reinforce certain details and emotions. At the beginning (45:35), we can hear “fairytales come true, it can happen to you…”. Later (46:00), the music cuts in to the narration with the line “you will go to extremes, with impossible schemes…”, which sets up the story.

Most of this work is narrated, but pieces of an interview with Nick Drakides are woven in. All of the interview segments are anecdotal. The first anecdote of the first performance occurs at about 49 minutes. Next, at 54:03, Nick tells the anecdote about the way the police officers acted the first, second, and third week of the show. Finally, at 55:10, Nick says a few words about how he was hugged by a stranger who enjoyed his performance.

I like the use of ambient sounds in this piece as well. They can give the listener a better idea of what is happening around the scene. I like the sound of Nick’s vocals throughout the piece because I can tell that his microphone is connected to a PA speaker. In other words, I can hear that it isn’t a studio recording. Aside from that, at 47:10 the sound of tap dancing on the wooden board accompanies a description of a tap dance.

Finally, I like how at 57:50, after the storyteller finishes his tale, Ira Glass mentions the program’s boss, imitates him, then plays a recorded quote from him, which gives the listener an awareness of the story of the story’s production.

Friday Night Jazz

September 21, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Joel and Dave 09-19-14 edit1

The man behind the bar said this place belonged to the public.

Joel and Dave 09-19-14 edit1

Drums…Sax….People. Loud. Keyboard. Drinks. Drums.
People. Voices. Beer. Trumpet. Bass. Bass. Guitar…..Jazz.

Joel and Dave 09-19-14 edit1

“Man, this is great.”

The Power of the Throwback

September 7, 2014 / / 0 Comments

One of the images that stood out to me was image 3/15 in the “Remembering Hardware” photo essay. It is the only black and white photo out of all the essays and I think that is satisfies a lot of the photo compositional guidelines in the readings.

This photo definitely satisfies the Rule of Thirds – the main focuses of the photo fall on the lines that divide up the field into 9 equal parts.  Mr. Kramer’s father is the biggest focal point on the right, and his assistant on the left also acts as a balancing element. There is a lot of depth in this photo. Again, Mr. Kramer’s dad is accentuated by his presence in the foreground (along with a small pile of knick-knacks). His assistant on the left is in the middle ground, and the racks of paint cans and whatnot take up the background.

I think this photo would be considered a medium shot, although it has some features of an establishing photo. This shot shows the characters along with their surroundings. It appears early in the sequence and the characters are on the job.

In the overall scheme of the essay, it helped me to learn about Mr. Kramer and the hardware store by capturing family history.  Mr. Kramer is proud and I can see that he totally owns the store, and we can see from the background that the store as always been packed with lots of things. It impressed me how happy his assistant is because the 1930s were not kind to most businesses. It made me feel like Mr. Kramer is the last member of his family to carry on this legacy – one that is proud to have always been able to successfully manage a wild and complicated inventory, even in the hardest of times. This picture sets the audience up for an essay that picks up at the beginning of an end.

Photo 3 of 15

Photo 3 of 15

Liz Anaya

September 4, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Liz blog post pic 1ORIGIN: Fairfield, CT

BEHAVIORS: Playing the violin, making music with others, hitting the books, hosting a radio show on WEMF, chasing dreams

HABITAT: Winter Hill, the EMF building (Sound Museum, Cambridge), McCormack practice rooms, Walden Pond at midnight

CHARACTERISTICS: Mysteriously multicultural, chaotically collaborative, peace-seeking & playful

ALIASES: “T.O.T.sky”, “Warcry”, “The Anayalator”, “E.”

CALL: “TOOOOotally…”

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