When it comes to new media, things always take longer than I think they will and today’s tasks were no exception. On the other hand, time goes by quickly when doing this kind of work, and what is actually a couple of hours feels like a half hour or so.
This morning I added the voiceover of the single-paragraph essay. Anything that short has to use what words it has in powerful ways; there is no room for filler. The one-minute version I wrote yesterday was too short to mesh well with the images, so I was in the good position of being able to add a couple of sentences in the middle. I did, and made sure one of them had the word “fragile” so that the bird images resonated more strongly.
The recording only took two tries. Then it was a matter of lining up the voiceover so that it hit the first three photos correctly. That took a little time and tweaking. I had hopes that if the beginning sequenced well, the rest would follow the law of serendipity and match up automatically. Some did, but I had to shift some of the cutaways to fit the dialogue, most notably moving the care center room photo to fit the right spot in the voiceover.
Unlike poetry, the essay calls for far more point by point connections between images and text. That is not to say that the author should go straight to visual cliches, but emphasis by layering image and sound is effective.
Here is the version I turned in:
Lanette Cadle 