[Lightstalkers] American Diversity Project 2008 | Multimedia | Pikeville Poetry

American Diversity Project 2008 | Multimedia | Pikeville Poetry

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:02:14 +0000

Poem written and performed by Brian Wagner. "Showdown" and "Myst" music excerpts by Kevin Macleod (http://incompetech.com). Photography by Josh Birnbaum, Nathan Weber, Kristina Barker, Tim Hussin, Uwe Martin, Kasha Stevenson, Andy Olsen, Sara Hopkins, Nicolas Benner, Djamila Grossman, and Rush Jagoe. Production by Patrick Yen. More ADP 2008 Multimedia can be viewed here: http://www.americandiversityproject.org/2008/multimedia/

Re: American Diversity Project 2008 | Multimedia | Pikeville Poetry

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 03:08:40 +0000

Video permalinks: http://www.americandiversityproject.org/2008/multimedia/pikeville/ http://www.americandiversityproject.org/2008/multimedia/coal/ http://www.americandiversityproject.org/2008/multimedia/rehab/ http://www.americandiversityproject.org/2008/multimedia/spyder/ http://www.americandiversityproject.org/2008/multimedia/school/ Panoramic permalinks: http://www.americandiversityproject.org/2008/multimedia/cityscape/ http://www.americandiversityproject.org/2008/multimedia/stripmine/ http://www.americandiversityproject.org/2008/multimedia/tipple/ http://www.americandiversityproject.org/2008/multimedia/bridge/ http://www.americandiversityproject.org/2008/multimedia/participants/ http://www.americandiversityproject.org/2008/multimedia/portraits/

Re: American Diversity Project 2008 | Multimedia | Pikeville Poetry

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 18:12:51 +0000

Thoughts? Anybody?

Re: American Diversity Project 2008 | Multimedia | Pikeville Poetry

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:39:23 +0000

Still looking for feedback.

Re: American Diversity Project 2008 | Multimedia | Pikeville Poetry

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:38:45 +0000

Well, I enjoyed watching it, Patrick. I was transported to the place, and allowed in to people's lives just for a minute. I like the way that diversity was pulled out of what most people would probably consider a non-diverse place, diversity of individuals, mostly, not diversity in the traditional "ethnic" sense, though that, too, was represented. It reminded me, a bit, of where I grew up, in NE PA, king coal, fairly homogeneous ethnically, etc. I liked the fact that coal was given a front seat. I thought it gave people a chance to share who they are. The outsider issue is also something to deal with in terms of representation of the Other, i.e. anyone who is not us. The music was a bit ominous, though it combined appropriately with much of the imagery. The split screen format was a nice way of contextualizing the in individual stories, of keeping a geographic perspective. It makes me unafraid to visit the place. I'd like to know more about the project itself. It seems like you had a team of people. Were they insiders? A combination of insiders and outsiders? How long did it take ya'll to put this together? How did you put it together? Several people providing raw material to one editor/producer? A collective editing/production process? What kind of audio technologies did you use? Editing software? I'm exploring new ways of making narratives, actually have been for a long time. (Back in late 90s I did a group project combining sound with images of the greater Chihuahuan Desert (Desert Voices, Desert Light) using all analogue recording techniques.) The tech side was a bit cumbersome, and I feel that now such a project would be all the more feasible because of tech advances. Anyway, I liked the show you all put together, hope my comments are useful, and welcome any information you are willing to pass on.

Re: American Diversity Project 2008 | Multimedia | Pikeville Poetry

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:02:14 +0000

Thanks David, I don't know of any participants who were "insiders" from eastern Kentucky. Perhaps there may have been a few. There were people from Kentucky, but eastern Kentucky isn't the same as the rest of Kentucky, though there are many similarities. The project took place over a week, I think I spent about two weeks after that putting together the multimedia. I edited the videos in Final Cut Pro using a custom 3:1 ultra widescreen timeline. The panos were stitched with Canon Photostitch and Photoshop CS3 photomerge. The web presentation was made with Flash CS3 and I used the 360PanViewer pro flash component for presenting the panos. We also used Soundtrack Pro to clean some audio files. People would shoot photos and then a team of photo editors would edit their takes everyday. Some people were shooting video, and there was a small team of multimedia producers. The multimedia team had some difficulty getting access in the community, so we didn't gather as much material as we had originally hoped for. The team did some preliminary editing during the week. At the end of the week I went through all the media gathered and put it together. Jim Winn put together all the still galleries and most of the site. I put together the multimedia part of the site. As for this short intro piece, Brian was given full creative control over the written word of his poetry. After we recorded his poem at the end of the week, I went through the take of images and tried to find images that related at least somewhat to the essence of his words. More of a literary approach than normal I suppose, but it's important to catch people's attention at the beginning of a presentation, almost like a summary lede, but with multimedia. As for the use of diptychs, the idea is that it somewhat represents a two page spread out of a magazine. You can have two unrelated images or two similar images, opposites or sames side-by-side. You can even have one image twice, both as a full-frame and as a zoomed-in detail. One can be color and one can be black and white, at the same time. Et cetera. It takes a long time to edit like that, at least twice as longer than normal, but I really enjoyed it. It's fun to experiment with visual communication and new media, it is new and all. It's a labor of love, ADP, I do it for free. Nobody gets paid. I would like to do more projects like this but it's hard to find many media outlets than can afford the market rate for multimedia production, at least in America. I don't know about others places.