Monday, April 22, 2013

Smoothly Blending Words and Images, Still and Moving - Neal Mann on Multiplatform Story Telling

Neal Mann's Friday presentation focused on Twitter and a bit of what he does as the Social Media editor at the Wall Street Journal - basically using social media to get WSJ stories out to the world AND using social media - particularly Twitter - to keep track of what's happening.  The Boston bombing which was unfolding over social and mainstream media emphasized the point he was making.

Saturday's talk was called Multiplatform Storytelling and he had two areas to cover:  multimedia platform story telling and stories of longevity.  He never made it to the second part. (Or did he and I missed it?  I don't think so.)  Everyone in the room seemed totally absorbed.  The video shows the beginning of the presentation.  I was sitting up close so I encourage you to at least watch the first 30 seconds.  He's a dynamic speaker and while he's in the US anyway, he's got a cool accent.


)

This presentation was very confirming. Neal's talking about what I try to do here - blend the written word, photos, and video into a story.  My execution isn't as good as my imagination - it would take a lot more software savvy on my part to get things to move and stretch the way I'd like. I've been putting up integrated posts for over five years now  with just a Canon Powershot and a Macbook and this jack-of-all-trades blogger didn't know that the reporter, the photographer, the video guy, the tech guy, and the editor were all supposed to be different people.  If I didn't try to get something out every day, I might be able to spend more time learning enough code to make the screen flow and stretch the way I'd like it to. What I'd really like is something like the NobodyHere site I featured a year ago February.  It's utter genius.

Neal, if you read this, what were you going to say about longevity stories?  Does my coverage of the Alaska Redistricting Board fit with what you were going to say. (See the Redistricting Board tab above.) 

[UPDATE March 12, 2014:  Viddler video replaced with YouTube.]

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments will be reviewed, not for content (except ads), but for style. Comments with personal insults, rambling tirades, and significant repetition will be deleted. Ads disguised as comments, unless closely related to the post and of value to readers (my call) will be deleted. Click here to learn to put links in your comment.