First, I watched the storycorp “Dr. King’s Final Speech” because I’ve been interested in MLK’s life after seeing video last week of his speech in Reynolds Coliseum in 1966. This was a great example of serving and supporting the narrator when their audio may not be of the best quality. It was clear that Clara Jean Ester had recorded it from her own phone whether on a call or zoom meeting, but that didn’t stop it from being inspirational. The still photo of Dr. King on that balcony ledge was perfect because it kept our attention to what she was talking about and the legacy of that moment. Having no music both allows us to pay attention to the words Ester spoke but also allows for a tone of seriousness and depth that music might’ve cheapened. Since it ended on a note of looking towards the future, they played us out with some piano which I think was appropriate because it adds a positive spin of security to a rather unfortunate event. I might include this tactic if my narrator ends their story with a look into the future as well.
Second, I watched the storycorp “Family Harmony” because I was intrigued at the idea that there was an animated element to it. Not only did it add creative illustrations that gave us insight into the narrator’s imagination, it also clarified what the narrator was saying without me having to turn on captions for different languages. I thought “wow, that’s a really inventive way to amplify a message for all audiences.” There was also an upbeat tone that put the audience at ease as well as adding a certain charm to the short. Something I noticed was that the more recent StoryCorps stories were all under 3 minutes or just at 3 minutes. I’m wondering if that has to do with people’s attention spans decreasing over the past couple years as other social media platforms have dominated with bite sized content or if it has more to do with cutting the fat out of stories in order to make a greater impact with quality over quantity. Speaking of animation, I recently attended the Ukrainian animated shorts screening at witherspoon student center and the amount of character development and storytelling artists are able to fit within just under 5 minutes is pretty impressive.