Page 131 - Convergent Journalism an Introduction Writing and Producing Across Media

Putting It All Together to Tell a Story

No matter which microphone you choose, you usually need to get it
close to the sound you want to record. Be aware of every sound at
a scene. You want to be sure you are recording what you want. The
noises the microphone picks up when you jostle it are distracting. The
best way to know if your microphone is getting what you want is to
use headphones while shooting. This is especially true when using a
wireless system. Not only do you need to listen for interference or
dying batteries, but you may also hear your subject saying something
important to your story.
Mark Anderson, a network freelancer from Minneapolis, calls what
he does “pinning the tail on the donkey.” He finds a person at the
scene of his story and asks him or her to wear the wireless microphone.
While he is shooting, he listens for usable sound. When he hears a
useful quote or bit of natural sound, he takes his microphone off and
seeks out another person to pin it on. He is able to get some very
compelling personalized sound by moving his microphone often and
listening while he shoots.

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Putting It All Together to Tell a Story

Four tools are essential for visual storytelling. In order of importance
they are:

• The camera
• The microphone
• The edit suite
• The written word

When telling a story, use pictures as your first tool. Consider them the
same way a novelist uses a pen or computer to capture the words for
a book. What you can’t tell with images, you tell through the sound
using microphones. This sound can either be natural sounds gathered
at the scene or interviews recorded in the field.
What cannot be told with the pictures and sound can be written
while editing. The way they are put together during editing can help
to tell the story. The last tool, in terms of visual storytelling, is the
written word. You should use words to tell what cannot be seen or
heard using the first three tools. NBC’s Bob Dotson (2000) calls it
“writing to the corners of your picture.”