This is the storytelling people want

Posted: November 02, 2007

In my JOU4341: Reporting and Writing for the Web class at the University of Florida, my teacher, Dave Stanton, asked us to check out this package by Magnum in Motion called “Chernobyl Legacy.”

It is the quintessential multimedia package.

The first part of the package is an introduction by the photographer, Paul Fusco. The pictures in the audio slideshow could say a thousand words by themselves, but the only thing that could and does say more is the audio. The mood, the tone, the music is a bit dramatic but incredibly effective.

“There was so much damage to so many people, in so many different ways. My first reaction was that I was looking at a different race of people, because the damage was so incredible.”

Next is a slide with an explanation of what happened April 26, 1986 in Chernobyl, and why Fusco felt the city’s legacy should be documented. It continues with a slideshow focusing on the children, all victims of Chernobyl. He tells their story with powerful pictures and compelling explanations of their sad, daily routine. There is no better way to show how an event affects society than to show it through the children. It’s very well done but hard to get through.

Those two slideshows are the main pieces of the package. by themselves they are great, but they are even better when supplemented by maps of the contaminated areas accompanied by audio, a time line of the disaster, another slideshow about the toxic cleanup, quotes from a book about the affected, articles and sites.

Some of the extras could have been better produced, but it’s OK because they were just extras. But as long as I am on the subject, I’ll tell you what could have been better.

The legend on the map of the contaminated areas was descriptive enough. I assume that the darker colors mean more radiation, but I am not 100 percent.

In the time line, each segment of time requires you to keep your mouse on it to read what it says. It should have been clickable. Also, it wasn’t necessary to put audio for each time code, “1 p.m., 1:06 p.m., 2 p.m.…” It got kind of annoying.

Lastly, I would have liked to hear the voices of the mothers of those children or the nurses taking care of them. I know that it would have required translators and all, but it would have been worth it to hear some of the facts coming from their mouths.

Aside from those small production mistakes, the package is great. I especially liked the captions, they were very well done. I fell like they are neglected sometimes. Kudos to Magnum for putting in a “React” section. This is the sort of thing that people need to and want to talk about.

As always, what did you think?

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