In “Soon There Will Be No Survivors” there are many different forms of media to enhance the emotional level that the reader feels while reading through the article. First, it has the writing piece which gives the reader information on what the essay is about and the important details. Although all of this is important, it is not what made this piece as emotional as it is. For me, it was the interviews of all the different holocaust survivors. I liked how there was one big collage with all of their pictures together, and then one by one they were separated and their own stories were told. It was very useful to have a brief bio about the person on the side. The setup was very useful to help the reader follow the information given. The pictures of each person next to their bio along with the audio recording of their stories helped create a picture of who that person truly was and what their struggles were. All of these things flowed very well throughout the text and were not at all a distraction or out of place. By including all of these different aspects into the story, it felt as if it was tying the entire story together.

Looking forward to my own multimedia project, I can take a similar approach to what these stories did. I can get interviews and audio recordings so I can place them within the text, and I can also include pictures so the reader can see exactly what the story is talking about. These stories helped me get a better understanding of what I need to do for my own project and how to make it as successful as it can be.

To have a successful profile, you need to focus on one accomplishment that the
person has had. It is important to have one good story that is going on
throughout the entire profile, but it is also important and necessary to have a
strong backstory. Without a backstory, the reader will just be jumping into
reading a story about a character that they know nothing about. It is good to
ease into the story, that way it can grab the reader’s attention and get them
caught up and interested. The character must be relatable and likeable, but he
also must become a character that people can feel like they know or want to
know. There must be something underneath the average person that makes them
different and unique. In the two stories we read, they do a good job on
focusing on just one character. Both of these characters seem normal and average,
but they have something beneath them that is worth looking at and worth
creating a story for. The story of Casey is great because he is a character
that everyone begins to like and connect to. He gets very connected to his job,
and it makes him a very likeable character. It makes his story worth telling
because he goes the extra mile rather than just being an average guy who
rescues animals. His story is emotional, and the reader learns to trust him
which is also good for making a successful profile. The Goetz story does a good
job of explaining each stage of his life, which helps the reader get more
insight. I can take away the strategies that each story used of the set up and
the details included on how to make my profile become as successful as it can
be.

Memories at the Park

https://kristinatarantino.exposure.co/880ec7da33badab2af37b7042736f8da

One writer I admire is Jodi Picoult. When you first visit her website, it is a lot of different colors that catch your eye right away, like yellow, blues, greens and oranges. It also shows her book tour dates right on the top of the website. It has pictures of the books that she has written, and quotes on it from Newspapers and other writers that are complimenting her on her writing. Included on her website is an interview with CNN about one of her books. She has information about what some of her books are about, along with quotes from other people’s comments on that particular book. The information is organized very well, having all of the pictures of the books above all of the information about that book and the quotes complimenting it. She has the quotes of people praising herself as a writer outlining the entire website. Her name is bolded and bigger than everything else and is located on the top of the page. She has the most important and upcoming things at the very top, and each other thing goes in chronological order from newest to oldest. The tone is that she is very friendly and a great writer, and is inviting others to start reading her books. The language is all very simple yet intriguing. The thing that is most successful about this site is that it really catches the viewer’s attention, and makes them want to continue to read through the website and read about her books. By doing that, it will make the viewer of the website want to go out and read more of her books. What I can take away from this for my own website is to make sure to make it look organized and fun to catch the viewer’s attention long enough to have them want to continue to stay on my site.

In the audio “sleeps tiniest enemies” the listener can feel the pain of the people who the stories focus on. This audio uses many different techniques to hook in the reader and make the story they are telling interesting. The first thing I noticed that worked well in this audio was the tones of the people telling the stories. For each certain part of the story they told, their tones fit the storyline. Their tones made the story more severe and dramatic. Also, the scripted story verse the interviews were very helpful to understand the story. During the scripted part of the audio, the listeners got to hear the details of the story that were crucial in order to understand what was going on in the story. It explained that the names were changed, and it gave background information so the listener was caught up with everything that happened prior to the interviews and over a certain period of time. The interviews were helpful because it helped connect the listener on a personal level. Hearing the people talk about their actual experiences made the stories seem more real. The interview where the woman says that her sheets were white with blue dots and because the bed begs were also white, and she began to think that her sheets were moving around her was very powerful. It showed the listener through her tone that she was frightened by her experiences and it also showed the listener how severe these bedbug experiences were. The music in this audio also worked very well. It almost seemed as if the audio in some parts were meant to sound like bugs crawling. Putting in music without anyone talking was a way to add more tension and dramatic moods to the audio which also added to the dramatic feel and the realness of the story. The background noises also made the stories seem more real because it showed that all of this was happening during the interviews and scripted writing. All of these things together worked very well because it kept the listener interested in the story the entire time. It made me realize that audio is filled with many different aspects techniques in order to keep it interesting for the listener.

Keira waits anxiously for her father to arrive at the playground.

Puppy dog eyed Keira bites her nails.

Her heart fluttered like butterfly wings.

I chose the sixth picture in “Remembering Hardware”. I really enjoyed this picture because I felt as if it gives purpose to such small objects. The first picture on this series of images was captioned how Mr. Kramer knew where all of the nuts and bolts of the store are and can tell you exactly where everything is. To me, this showed how deeply he cares about every little part of the store. By showing the picture of the keys, it reiterated the fact that Mr. Kramer pays attention to all of the little parts that make up the store. These are the “small and obscure” objects that Mr. Kramer makes sure to pay attention to.

This image is a good example of cropping. It only shows the objects, which are many keys. Since keys are small objects, using the cropping method helped to acknowledge that the keys were the important part of the picture, and not anything that was surrounding the keys. This could also be looked at as using background. The keys are on a very plain brown board, which helps keep the main focus on the keys themselves.

This image shows the viewers that art can be made out of the simplest and smallest things. When I look at my keys, I don’t think anything of them. But this image makes it seem like keys are something of more worth. When looking at the picture as one piece of part of the series of images, it also helps to show that when looking at the bigger picture, you can’t forget the small things that help make the bigger picture possible.

  ORIGIN: Arlington, Massachusetts

BEHAVIORS: writing,  playing with my hair,  going to Country concerts

MARKINGS: Brown hair, American Eagle jeans, bracelets

BEHAVIORS: Cracking my knuckles, turning red when presenting, avid Netflix watcher

CALL: Everything happens for a reason