StoryCorps: “Grandma’s Hands” and “I Carry Him With Me”

The first StoryCorps video that caught my attention was an animated version of content titled “Grandma’s Hands.” The animated visuals put emphasis on the story being told, because you could get a sense of the story that was being voiced over. The voiceover itself had a crisp sound quality and was spoken by one voice. Even though you could not physically see who was talking, it was easy to tell who the narrator of the story was. A common theme of the StoryCorps stories that related to this video, was an intro and outro of music. The music added some lightheartedness to pull on your heartstrings with the story of a girl and her loving Grandmother. The second video I watched was a little bit older and this time was not in animated form. The visuals themselves were just an image of two little girls next to their dad. The title of the video was “I carry Him with Me.” I like how there was just an image instead of moving images, because it really let me focus on the story that was being told. Just like the other video, this one had a musical intro and outro to set the sweet, toned mood. Unlike the first video the interviewer spoke first to give some background information because the storyteller took over the story. I thought this was nice because it was just enough talking from the interviewer that it was not too much to take over the story. Like the first video “Grandma’s Hands,” the second video “I Carry Him with Me” has decent sound quality (it also helps that the speakers are very softspoken.) When comparing the two videos, I think the second video is more affective to me just because I am not necessarily a visual learner, so the animation was not as important to me. I like stories where I can just sit back and listen and not be distracted by other visual factors.