Audio in Rich Media
Telling Stories with Sound
Audio has been a key part of Storm’s work for more than a decade. “My fascination with combing the storytelling power of audio with documentary photography started in the early ’90s, when I was a graduate student studying photojournalism,” he recalls. Storm began producing CD-ROMs, which held the potential to tell a deeper story than traditional media. For one large multimedia project, he interviewed the photographer as well as the subjects to see how their perceptions of the photographs differed. “It was a fascinating process, and led me to believe that adding audio to still photography was like a text caption on steroids.”
In the Field and On Deadline
Rich media journalists often work alone or in pairs, though some rely on production teams to assemble the final project. “Many of our projects are reported by a single visual journalist,” says Storm. “The tools are certainly robust enough now for one person, given the time and training, to capture it all.”
Meyer says he works solo 99 percent of the time. “I have to balance collecting audio and photographs,” he explains. “With sporting assignments, I often collect ambient audio at peak times of the game — I place the recorder or mic away from me, so I don’t get the camera sounds. Then after the game, I attend the press conference to get quotes from the coach or players.”
He also handles almost all of his own production after the shoot. “Most slideshows are on deadline. I can often make an audio slideshow live within an hour to 1.5 hours after an event. Most of that time is spent on audio editing. But the audio is extremely important — sometimes more important than the images. When I build a slideshow, I edit the audio first and then build the images around the audio.”
But it can be hard to cover both sound and images solo, says Connelley: “I have to monitor my sound, make sure I get all the images to go with that sound, and also make sure the sound is good. I always try to shoot for audio first, because people notice bad audio before they notice bad video or still images. People kind of turn their heads when they hear bad audio, but a photo usually has to be completely out of focus for them to notice it’s not good.”
A team of two is ideal in the field, says Newton. “You have someone concentrating on sound and someone concentrating on images. A lot of times in interviews, I ask a question and Sean monitors the levels on the recorder. That way I can really listen to the person who’s talking.”
Essential Equipment
The standard tools for recording audio include a high-quality digital recorder and one or more good microphones. “There are a variety of devices on the market now, and they are getting better all the time,” says Storm. “I like the Marantz PMD 660 recorder — it records to the same flash cards that we use in digital cameras and has rock-solid XLR connections.”
Storm recommends carrying three types of microphones: “I use a shotgun mic for on-the-run recording, a Beyer M58 for all-purpose recording, and a wireless mic for controlled interviews. You can see the audio and video kits we use on the MediaStorm website.”
Meyer currently uses the Roland Edirol R-09 recorder. “It has interchangeable batteries, and it turns on fast,” he says. “And it has a built-in mic that’s good for natural sound. For interviews, I use an inexpensive $90 Sony microphone.”
“We have an Edirol R-1, which is pretty good,” says Connelley. “I’ve also used the M-Audio recorder a couple of times. I’ve been using my iPod a lot too, with the XtremeMac MicroMemo recorder attachment. I still think my MiniDisc is the best audio recorder I’ve used. We’ve also used video cameras to record sound, just using DV tape.”
For more information on audio equipment for journalists, see Apple’s article on Audio Gear for Rich Media.
-->Mac computers and Apple software figure prominently in all three teams’ production setups. “People walk into our production space and think we are poster boys for Apple,” jokes Storm. “Our standard workstation is a Mac Pro with 9 GB of RAM and 3 TB of hard drive space. We use Aperture for image editing and enhancement, SoundTrack Pro for audio editing, and Final Cut to produce our projects. Aperture and Final Cut are incredible products. Producing simple projects is very easy, but the programs are also deep with features. For example, Aperture’s ability to enhance one image in a sequence, then copy those enhancements and apply them universally to the rest of the images has saved us hundreds of production hours.”
“There’s a lot of good Mac software for creatives that you don’t see on PCs, and it’s definitely easier to use,” says Connelley. “We love GarageBand — we’ve used it for a lot of our little videos, and for doing basic background sound. But once we upgraded to Final Cut 5 and I saw SoundTrack Pro, I was hooked — it was really easy to use. Now I use SoundTrack Pro for all my audio editing.”
Sound Advice
Take it from these pros: With some simple equipment, basic knowledge, and a bit of experimentation, it’s easy to start working with audio to create high-impact rich media projects.
“I definitely encourage everyone to explore sound as a way to help tell the stories they’re trying to tell,” Connelley says. “We’re no longer in the medium of just still photography. It’s extremely powerful to be using audio, using video, and using graphics to tell a story. Audio just brings a story to life.”
