February 9th, 2018

Discussion Post #2

I absolutely loved the readings for this week. After reading “After the Storm” by Andrew Beck Grace in 312 last year, I’ve thought about it and how I could potentially create my own works based on this form. I don’t know for sure what I will write about, but I really enjoy the multimedia incorporations. “Snowfall: the Avalanche at Tunnel Creek” by John Branch was interesting to me too, and I liked being able to compare the way that these two pieces were organized. I really enjoyed Dan Zak’s “The Polaroids of the Cowboy Poet” because of its multimedia incorporations of the photographs and audio clips. “After the Storm” involves more ‘pages’ (not sure what to call it for sure- you have to click/interact to be taken to a new screen) and during my first read, it was a little difficult to maneuver through since I’d never encountered a multimedia essay before. I appreciate Branch’s sleek approach to the form. I think the term ‘scrollytelling’ applies to his essay and Zak’s essay because they are all on one page. I think that emulating this style because it would probably be a simpler format for my first time creating a multimedia essay.

I’d like to incorporate personal videos and voices into my future works. I liked the audio clips that went along with the visual slideshows in Zak’s piece. To me, this made his piece more authentic and relatable. I loved how some of the words were highlighted and if you scroll over them, pictures come up. I think it’d be interesting to work audio into this. For example, if there are quote in a piece, then the reader could scroll over highlighted quotes to hear a voice of the person/someone reading them. Also, I adore Washington, D.C., so this essay really resonated with me, and I thought the topic was unique and intriguing. It might be interesting to do something like that for Fredericksburg or Charlottesville or Madison (where I’m from).

These readings made me eager to learn how to use audio/video technologies to enhance my own writing. I want to make an engaging and slightly interactive piece like these works, but I think that coming up with an idea is the most challenging part (besides learning all of the technologies tricks behind it, but that would come later). Also, I’m left with the questions about publication: how do these writers submit their content? Do they have to specify or code into the websites themselves, or do places like the New York Times and PBS have certain ways that handle multimedia submissions?