Questions I hope to answer: What makes a compelling story? What can I do to make my storytelling compelling, relevant, just and memorable? Focus on the storytelling for this one, the said and unspoken and how the editing, again, enhances the story.
I wanted to focus on photo essays for this post, because as a Journalism student, I've always been intrigued by photography and would love to explore photojournalism. One of my favorite photo blogs is "Lens", by the NYtimes, and a blog post written by James Estrin featuring photographs of Andrea Bruce. In the past she had been covering war-torn Middle East, but for this photo essay she shed light on perhaps the least glamorous yet serious problem on Earth: open deification. Deconstructing these photos to look at the formal elements- they are stunning. There is great use of open space and leading lines, however I would expect nothing less from an experienced photographer. Aside from the art of it all, looking at it from a journalism perspective rather than an artistic perspective, the story behind it is powerful. I intentionally did not read the bulk of the blog post because I wanted to identify the storyline without a written narrative accompaniment, and derived solely from the photographs. I know it was a successful photo series because I was able to do this; it is clear that the topic is open deification. It details the publicness of deification, and its detrimental hazardous health effects that impact day-to-day life, that is clear to me- but how did she do it? Why is it so obvious based upon something visual? For one, the portraiture in particular was certainly telling of the message she wanted to communicate because facial expressions are so revealing as to what the tone of the story should be. In this case it is, sad, malnourished, pained, helpless, impoverished- all of these traits are able to be identified from the subjects' face. Excellent choice of subjects paired with the compelling photographic composition makes for a photo to go from a picture to a narrative. Dim lighting, blurred motion, and repetition are some other elements Andrea included, to make a compelling and cohesive piece demonstrating an important global struggle. As cliche as it sounds, a picture does feel like a thousand plus words, when done correctly.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/lens/photographing-an-indelicate-but-deadly-subject.html
Another photo essay, also from "Lens", is detailing photographs by Erin Lefevre with a blog accompaniment by Sara Aridi. Lefevre made an incredibly memorable photo series unpacking a life with autism. Right off the bat, anyone can note what sets this apart from a traditional photo essay: it has handwritten captions from an autistic person. The writing is messy and the captions are emotional. I think the photo essay is excellent on its own, but it may be a little gray as to what is being communicated without the captions. The photos paired with the messiness of the handwritten work make for an excellent example of storytelling a life with autism. I do not know anyone on the spectrum, however I feel like I understand an autistic persons experience better with this series, and that is a sign of a successful story told. Without the captions, I don't think it would have the same effect. They're so messy, it causes discomfort. That discomfort is juxtaposed by rather sweet, pleasant photos. There is something literally twisted about each angle of the photographs, which I think enhances the visual experience. All of these elements listed alone might sound weird, but stepping back and looking at the project as a whole, it works. The twisted angles, messy handwriting, and sweet content blend memorably to fit the story.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/22/lens/visualizing-life-with-autism.html
This video demonstrating life for a Syrian refugee mother. While my two previous examples have been photo essays, I chose a video to compare with them to diversify my analysis, As an editor, I think about video differently than a non-editor. I think about the person who chose to cut up the footage the way that they did, and consider why they did it, how I would do it, what constraints they were working under, if I would be perform differently under the same constraints, etc. I put myself in the editor's shoes. That being said, I love what NPR has done with this video. The intro is fascinating to me, because not only did it do it's job of setting up the exposition, but it created drama with perpetually more rapid jump cuts and suspenseful music (something a traditional photo essay can't bring to the table). It made it memorable. From there, the sound bites were packed with emotion which developed the mood of the entire piece. With that mood in mind, they chose to include animated graphics to emphasize the journey of refugees, an effective decision from a storytelling perspective. The audience benefits from the graphics, as it was used as a tool to drive home a point, a cool visual, and accurate representation of the story they are telling. The emotion in the SOTs woven between effective narration, makes for an impactful project. Other elements including the candid shooting, well spoken explanations and raw conditions, work exquisitely to tell this story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6WbEokupKM