A look at "The bells of Florida"
Posted by Curt Franklin on 25 October, 2007
One of my classmates produced their soundslide on The bells of Florida. I watched and listened to the presentation, and had some thoughts on what she’d done.
This soundslide is interesting for the information it brings, but the interest is present in spite of the absence of a strong story. Why isn’t it a story? A story is based on movement of characters and action through time, while this is, essentially, a good presentation of static facts. Part of the problem in turning this into a story is presented early in the soundslide — Century Tower is a long-time fixture on the UF campus. For most students, it is the definition of an unchanging landmark on campus. If the presentation had followed the evolution of Gill as a carillon player, or the development and practice of a single piece of music from initial introduction to finished performance, it would have been easier to create a story flow, but it would have been a very different soundslide.
The beginning has some inherent interest since almost everyone at UF is familiar with the carillon, but there’s a quote mid-way through the piece that seems a natural lead: when Gill talks about the carillon players not being like Quasimodo, I felt a natural lead. This soundslide led with an introduction to the interview subject (as my soundslide did), but the more I listen to soundslides, the more I wonder whether placing the interview subject ID might not better be left for later in the soundslide.
I felt the conclusion of the soundslide was successful, giving information that we didn’t have earlier (it’s possible to get a tour of the tower) and the interview subject’s feeling about an aspect of her work in the tower. The only thing that I missed is technical — after all the carillon music in the background, it would have been nice if there had been time to let the piece end on a chime note that faded out. It would have added a second or two, but it would have made for a great ending.
This piece ended up being weighted to the profile side rather than the campus life side, by about 65 – 35%. I like this proportion, and honestly think that making it more a "tour of the tower" would have weakened the presentation. In this case, letting us see the tower and the carillon through the eyes of a musician brought deeper understanding and a new perspective — both great things when it comes to a taken-for-granted landmark.
If asked to improve the soundslide, I would make the following suggestions:
1. More shots of students around the tower. We’ve been told it’s a common part of student life, but I remember only one shot of students — one or two more would be nice.
2. Tighten the practice console section. This is interesting, but could be tightened by a few seconds without losing impact.
3. Filter some of the heavy breathing/wind noise in the section where we hear footsteps going up the stairs. I really like the footsteps, but the breathing is distracting.
4. Use the seconds you save in (2) to close with a longer carillon note.
5. Lead with the Quasimodo line. It’s great.
My favorite part of the soundslide is the background track — the bells, footsteps, and other environmental sounds that underlay the interview. These sounds really added a great deal of interest and "feeling of place" to the overall presentation. I thought they were very effective and well done throughout.
All in all I enjoyed the soundslide very much. I learned new things about something I hear every day, and I was impressed with the quality of both photos and sound.
floraxu1220 said
Before listen to this soundslide, I never thought about there is someone who play the carillon in the Center Tower, i just think the bell ring automatically .To me, the information conveyed by this soundslide is interesting and novel,and the soundslide get my interest in the very beginning, so I really enjoy listening to this soundslide.
However, I have the same feeling as Curt has. This is definitely a student campus life, but I am not sure if it can be called a story. The interviewee seems to introduce the carillon to us, how she plays the carillon, but not a complete story, with a beginning, a climax and an ending.When the girl mentions “I got involoved with the carillon…”, I expect to hear the story how she involved with it, the story behind it. And later, she mentions people are curious about the carillon and ask her to take them into the Center Tower, I expect the audio can mention the reaction of people after they visited the Center Tower. I just have many questions in mind when I listen to the soundslide.
I love the pictures in this soundslide, which are framed very well. But I only see very few pictures showing how the girl play the carillon and there are only one or two photos include other student. So when I listen to the soundslide, I am curious that whether she is usually alone in the Center Tower playing the carllion.
dtrunk said
As soon as I read your comments, I realized how right you were and that I should have started the story with the Quasimodo quote. Whenever I described the topic to others as I was putting the story together I never failed to mention, “She said people think she swings on ropes like quasimodo…” so clearly I knew it was the catchiest part of the story. And if I had used it first, I think i can see a way to create a story arch – not something I was really thinking about when I put this together. Rather, I was entirely focused on trying to show that the bell tower was an important part of student life.
It was fun doing this story though. I felt really lucky my interview source was so well spoken. Walking around up in the tower was eye-opening. I suggest you try it sometime.
Thanks for your comments!
britr said
I love these. Great work!
I agree with Kurt about his photo suggestion: I’d like to see more photos of students around/looking up/resting near the tower. A lot of the audio talked about it’s place as a campus staple, and I want to see it more. I know it’s tough, but a close-up photo with emotion and shadow would be interesting, especially if it was the face of some-one other than the subject.
I disagree with one of your comments about the audio, though. I thought the audio was so interesting that I didn’t hear the heavy breathing, though. And frankly, if we’re climbing stairs, that would be an essential part of the nat sot.
ealnashmi said
I probably looked at all the soundslides that our class made, and this one was one of my best, primarily because of those beautiful photos. I might have to disagree with you on the issue of it being a story or not. I considered this project to have a story mainly because it told me something that I didn’t know— I always thought the bells rang automatically. But I might add that the audio needed some more editing and cleaning up.