Writing for Print and Online Media

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

Tag: storytelling

Bog Post #7: Embedded Multimedia

After reading/interacting with “Bulger on Trial” (David Boeri, WBUR) and “Soon There Will Be No Survivors” (Jason Florio, Tablet), choose one of the two projects and write a brief analysis reflecting on how the multimedia content shaped your experience of the story. Which elements enhanced your reading experience? And in what way? Which, if any, felt distracting or extraneous? What do you notice about how these elements were incorporated into the flow of the text? What decisions went into the design of the interface and to what effect?

Looking forward to your multimedia profile, what might you take away from these projects as you consider what kind of content to collect and how to embed it in your story?

Audio Feature!

Blog Post #5: The Art of the Profile

Taking up the two assigned profile articles (“Bernie Goetz: Squirrel Vigilante” and “Sean Casey: Pet Rescuer”) as a point of departure, reflect on what you see as central to “the art of the profile,” as a distinctive genre of journalistic feature writing. Describe at least two key features (related to research, structure, style, content, etc.) that you believe make these profiles successful, using specific examples from the text to demonstrate your ideas. What might you take away from these two pieces of writing as you begin to propose, research, and write your profile article?

Storytelling: Kindness of Strangers

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.

Blog Post #3: Stories in Sound

Using Ira Glass’s principles of  storytelling as a starting point, choose one of the three assigned audio features and write a brief analysis of how the story is put together and why it works. Break the story down into its component parts—interviews, scripted narration, music, ambient sound, etc.—and consider how these pieces work together to produce a story that is worth listening to. Point to specific moments and strategies that illustrate your ideas and cite the timecode for reference. Identify at least one thing that you can take away from this story and apply to your own audio feature.

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