Using Pictures to Tell the Story

News Gathering Process:

            Recently I was working on a story that focused on foster families.  I went to a local 5K race that raised money for organizations that help foster children and foster families.  After talking to several foster parents, I realized that state funding is a problem that confronts foster parents.  They need all the financial help they can get, and they face struggles in providing for their families daily.  Their story is complex, but it’s one that is generally overlooked.  I wanted to tell this story in a meaningful way to explain to people just what they have to go through to help their foster children succeed. 

            I shot some video of the families, but I was looking for a way to tell the story that would have more impact on the viewers.  One of the foster parents gave me a few pictures of local food distributions and clothes drives; having these pictures was a powerful storytelling tool.  The photos allowed me to reach out to the audience and actually show them what was happening.  Instead of telling the story, I could show it and have viewers experience it firsthand.  The photos document the foster parents’ lives and show the tiny details that are typically overlooked by many.  The photos enable the viewer to experience the foster families’ situations firsthand.  Each picture was a valuable asset in telling the story.

            Unfortunately, I didn’t end up using the photos because I didn’t know how to incorporate them into my story.  I had some great video of foster parents and their children, and I didn’t know where to tie the photos into the story. I wanted to include the photos in my piece because they had the ability to tell the story that words don’t have the power to express.  However, I was unable to visually connect the video with the pictures.  As a result of this, I think my story lacked impact.  The photographs had potential to add depth and variety on the audience.  If I used the photographs I think my story would’ve left a longer-lasting impression on the viewers.

            While I was working on this story I realized the importance of using a variety of media to tell a story.  A story can be told a number of ways; you have to find the most effective way to tell it.  This story could’ve been more effective and had a greater impact if I integrated the pictures with the video.  The pictures would’ve set the tone for my piece and added emotion that the video couldn’t evoke.  I think my story was still meaningful in the end, but I could’ve taken it further to let the audience really experience for themselves what foster families encounter and overcome.  The photographs could’ve helped me set the scene of my story and guided the viewers in visualizing this scene.

Journalism Reflection:

            I learned more about my strengths and weaknesses as a journalist from my piece about foster families in Mid-Missouri.  I need to learn how to incorporate different types of storytelling elements into my pieces.  I wanted to use both video and pictures to tell the story of struggling foster families, but I stuck with video because I couldn’t use both effectively.  I wanted to improve on converging different types of media to tell one fluid, concise story.  I searched for good examples of visual storytelling, and one that I found seemed to jump out at me more than others.

            A journalist covered a volcanic eruption in Indonesia.  The pictures taken to capture the action and reaction of this event were compiled into a video slide show.  The slide show taught me about composition, capturing the action and a reaction, and finding visually stimulating images to push the story along.

            Several of the images really jumped out at me.  They forced me to imagine the extent of the situation and made me think about how people are really affected.  The photos offer a visual representation of what's happening.  Some of these photographs contain gory or gruesome content; it's hard for me to imagine being in that position, but it makes me wonder about the people who are actually affected by the eruption.  The pictures add a sense of reality to the story and they bring the viewers to the scene, which enables them to experience the catastrophic events.

            The order the pictures are presented in is important.  They can be sequenced to tell the story in chronological order, or they can be put in an order to show the action and how people reacted to the situation.  In this slideshow, the images are presented in a chronological order that traces the start of the eruption all the way to then end, where the aftermath of the explosion is documented.

            The photos used vary in content.  The slide show starts with the explosion, then it cuts to the reaction of a young Indonesian girl, followed by the devastation in a nearby village. The devastation is displayed through images of injured cows, their bodies covered in ash and blood.  The destruction is also portrayed through pictures of families walking through remains of their homes, as well as pictures of villagers relocating to refugee camps. 

            This slideshow masters the technique of capturing an action, the volcano exploding, and the reactions of the people.  It tells the story without words; from watching the slideshow you can tell what happened, the devastation caused, and the outcome of the event.  You can feel the pain of the young girl who watches as her village is turned to ash, and you can’t help but feel sorry for the mother who covers her baby as she runs from falling ash.  From looking in the eyes of the elderly woman who sits in the truck, you can see her thoughts.  She is deep in thought about how the land that has been her home for more than sixty years has been wiped away in a flash.  She thinks back to all the memories and the life she knew, and wonders about how different her life will be now.  Her facial expressions tell a lot about her thoughts, and just from looking at this picture viewers are exposed to a deeper, more complex story than the overlying events.

            Each of these images portrays a story with greater depth and detail than the story on the surface.  Looking at these photos inspires me to capture this much emotion in my own stories.  I want to be able to use photographs in my video pieces to expel as much emotion as I can.  I want my viewers to be affected and impacted by my stories, and to do so I need to use thought-provoking images that tell a deeper story.

Slideshow: Indonesian Volcano Erupts

A Game Plan For My Future In Journalism

Personal News Gathering Process

This week I was looking for a story with a strong central compelling character.  A strong character can tell a story more effectively and can have a greater effect on the audience.  I wanted to find a newsworthy story that had a strong character, but this was harder to find than I thought.

Everyone has a story to tell, so I thought it would be relatively easy to find a story idea.  But it's not finding an idea that's the hard part; it's finding a story that can be told visually.  Broadcast is a visual medium and requires images to advance the story.  It's easy to tell a story, but I was presented with a challenge when I tried to find a solid story that provided good visuals.  There are an infinite amount of good stories, but not all of them can be told visually.

In order to tell a story visually, I realized that it has to have action.  That narrowed down my list of ideas.  After reading the news and searching for stories, I learned that there is a local 5K that raises money for foster care children.  I thought this would make for a great idea because it has all the components a recipe for a great broadcast story should have.  There is lots of action with the 5K run/ walk, and the race dives deeper into a human interest story in which children are affected.  This story contains visually interesting images and repetitive action; the footage I shoot from the 5K will be exciting video that advances the story.  I can shoot the 5K and explain the race in my story, but I can also connect this race and the money donated from this race to someone who is affected by it.  I can find someone who this donation money will affect, and I can show how the race impacts their life. 

 I watched a story like this one in my class.  The reporter was Jana Shortal, a University of Missouri graduate.  The story was about a 5K run/walk established in honor of a runner who died of cancer.  The piece gives a backstory on the runner, and ends with the race and the impact the race had on the community.  The story was well done, so I want to use it as a guide to help me put together a meaningful piece.  I am inspired by good journalism; I'm attempting to improve as a broadcast journalist, and I plan to use Jana Shortal's piece to help me see what it takes to put together a strong, compelling story.

Journalism Reflection

As I mentioned earlier, I am inspired by good journalism.  I found a piece that ties together strong, concise writing with eye-catching visuals.  The story "Outside the Lines: OTL: Game Plan" sparked my interest not only because of the subject matter, but because of the way the story was put together.

Outside the Lines OTL: Game Plan
The story opens with great nat sound of the football team in a huddle.  The team looks intense, and the players seem like they have years of experience.  The reporter mentions that the team's quarterback has already accepted an offer to play college football at USC, which makes viewers think the team is a high school team.  But the story takes a turn when the reporter says the team is made of up middle school students and the quarterback is an eighth grader.  The reporter uses the element of surprise to take her story from ordinary to unexpected.  This is a great tool is storytelling; it keeps viewers guessing.  Surprise is key in storytelling.  The story starts like any ordinary football story might, but then it takes a twist.  I realized that I have to incorporate more surprise in my stories.  I want to use more unexpected turns in my stories to keep them fresh and original.  By doing this I can also improve my storytelling abilities.  I'll have a better understanding of how to use the components of a story to draw a reaction and emotion from the viewers.

This piece uses a number of elements to tell the story.  Storytelling involves finding the best ways to get the message across.  You have to think about ways other than using words to tell the story.  This piece uses great footage of football games and practices.  The shots vary from tight, medium, to wide and show a number of angles on the football field.  The reporter also uses video from outside sources to communicate the message.  In part of the story, she uses video from the Flash Training program, as well as video from the FOCAS Foundation.  She uses video from other outlets, then cuts back to video from the middle school football team.  This keeps the story fresh; instead of watching the same video throughout a nine-minute story, the reporter cuts to clips of other footage.  This helped me think about how to use video from other outlets in my story.  I learned how to think more creatively about what video to use from watching this piece.  She incorporates a broad mix of various video sources, and to keep a longer story interesting I think this can be helpful.  Her edits and cuts were still smooth and the story was fluid.  The different pieces of video fit together smoothly to create one unified story.  This inspires me to think deeper about how I put my stories together.  After watching this piece, I have a few mental notes on how to link pieces of my story together to create a more fluid story.

The reporter also links graphics to her story to help illustrate the piece.  She used graphics when she mentioned a lot of numbers and statistics that would be hard for viewers to remember.  The statistics added valuable information to the story so they were key to include; instead of overloading the viewers with facts numbers, she presents the information clearly with a graphic.  I was looking for a way to tie graphics into my stories more smoothly.  The way this reporter used graphics in her story helps me visualize when, where, and how graphics should be used in a story.  I also like the layout and page design of her graphics.  The type is bold and each statistic is located in its own separate box so viewers can see each separate fact.  This piece taught me more about using different ways to tell a story.  I learned how to use the element of surprise to keep a story interesting, I saw how other videos can be incorporated in a piece to help tell a story, and I saw how clean, concise graphics can help viewers retain the information discussed in a story.  I now have a better game plan for my future stories.