Slide Show Project

We plan on interviewing Dorian for our sound-slide-project. Dorian is a professor who draws student’s portraits and displays them in the theater lobby. He and his sketches are a well-known fixture at Lyndon State. Many students and have been the subject of his art. It is our understanding is that he has been at the college for many years and therefor would have plenty to say. For images we would photograph the portraits, parts of his process (easels, pencils, clipboards etc.) and if possible, Dorian sketching. We would like to record some nat sound of shuffling papers, pencil on paper, and other art preparations. Of course our main sound will be the interview. We our most interested in his process. How does he choose his subjects? What his favorite part of sketching? What about his other work? Does he work with other mediums? How did he begin sketching portraits and why does he continue? We also hope to get sounds bytes about interesting stories over the years. Who are some of his favorite subjects? The most rewarding experiences he has had with his art? Of course for all this to happen we first need to find him but once we do it should be all down hill from there.

Random Fish Project

Slideshow Gallery Critique

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/audioslideshow/2014/may/03/heroin-addiction-graham-macindoe-photography
-This link goes to the slideshow with audio. The slideshow was mostly just the pictures he took with his camera that he was describing in the beginning of the video. The audio was him saying how he got all of the pictures and which camera he used for each one, the lighting, and the methods he used for each and every picture. It wasn't really storytelling it was more of just background on the process instead of describing the background of the picture and the story behind it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpSzJjoOAMQ
-This link is the no audio slideshow and it was filled with fine art screen-savers. I found it very boring and there was no real story to it, seeing as how it was just a bunch of pictures

 http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/photos/gallery/collection/1#/carousel

-This link is the photo gallery one, it is just pictures like the no audio slideshow, and it was just as boring with no story.

All these are good but I found that the one with audio was more entertaining and kept me more focused on it. The ones with no audio are boring and don't tell a story so people would more than likely just get bored within the first few minutes and leave the video. Having things with audio is definitely the better route to take when making a slideshow or doing anything people would watch.  

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/8229250/Press_Releases_

Data Vitalization: Word Cloud

This data visualization is a world cloud. To create it we used press releases that were sent to news seven from various towns across the state, and then put them into wordle. The most frequently used words are the largest and the smallest ones are the least used words.
As you can see DUI is a very frequently used word. The majority of press releases the station receives are about DUIs. One can also assume that theft is a common crime considering it's fairly large size.  Twenty three and twenty two are also pretty prevalent words, though I am am not sure what context they were used in. It could be that people between the ages of 22-23 commit the most crimes in this area. St. Johnsbury, Bristol, Brattleborro and Lyndonville are all towns with large representation in the word cloud. This could mean that the towns report a lot of crimes, that they just send out more press releases, or that people often are brought their after the crime. For example St. Johnsbury and Brattleborro both have barracks that are often used to hold drunk drivers until they sober up. The last large word is unknown. Unknown is a very common word in press release. A motive can be unknown, a person can be unknown, and a million other little details can be unknown.
   The word cloud is a actually a fairly useful data visualization tool. You can gain a lot of understanding from them. What you can't get from them is facts. There are statistics, so it wouldn't be useful if you were trying to determine exactly how many crimes happen in Brattleboro or how many people between the ages of 20 and 24 receive DUIs. It is very aesthetically pleasing though, which is an added bonus if your are using it on a blog or in a story, it catches the readers eye and therefor draws interest to what you are saying.