Red hot rails

Posted on February 25, 2007 by Melissa Worden

Richard Hernandez at mercurynews.com put together Red hot rails, a multimedia piece about how the nation’s railroad tracks are red-hot. He shot and edited the video and produced the Flash interface and interactive graphic. You can read about his progress on the project here.

(Note: I like how Angela Grant isn’t afraid to be critical in her critiques. So I’ve challenged myself to do the same. Here goes … )

>> First off, Red hot rails is truly a lovely presentation that I will use as inspiration in my own work. Richard has a done a great job his first time creating all of the pieces solo. I especially like how the rollovers on the links along the top and in each thumbnail photo work. The design is clean and the transitions between screens flow smoothly.

>> One place I don’t like the transition effect was in the “photos section.” Too much going on just for the sake of having movement, and it started to get a bit annoying. I’d like a next and previous button on the large photos, also.

>> One place I don’t like the design is on the video page. Other than reading left-to-right, I don’t get a sense of the hierarchy, and the text is way too small to read.

>> I like how a static graphic was made interactive, but it could have been made that much better with some audio narration.

>> Maybe I’m missing something, but why the numbers on the sections?

>> Then there’s the video — something Richard’s obviously quite talented at producing and editing. It’s so nice I hate to criticize it.

Now is a good time to make a confession: I appreciate video and understand its importance and increased popularity this past year. As an online journalist I fully support it, but as a reader, I’m not a big fan.

See, I’m a “Web skimmer.” Seriously, I have ADD when it comes to Internet surfing and particularly when it comes to video. It’s so hard for me to concentrate for more than a couple minutes unless the content is something I’m very interested in or the way its told grabs me from the start.

All of the video in Richard’s project is beautifully shot, but honestly I got about 1/4 of the way through “Take a Ride on the Alameda Corridor,” and I got antsy and found myself wanting to click away. I’m not sure why. Was the intro tone too artsy for me? Maybe. Because when the narrator kicked in, I was surprised, but it kept me in the piece.

“The Capitol Corridor,” on the other hand, grabbed me right away with the integration of text from the start. I like this style a lot and it works with the intro in the video story that’s tough to illustrate otherwise.

Given how most of these pieces that we all are doing are in one Flash package, we can’t tell how other readers are using these special reports. Are they lingering on the video? Or do they take a peek and move on? I hope we’re not patting each other on the back for content that no one else is noticing. Hopefully readers will do as I did and tag the whole thing to watch when they have some time to curl up and digest and enjoy the great work that video journalists are creating.

(*Note: After writing this, I noticed that Angela wrote a critique of this project, too. You can read her review here.)

Comments

One Response to “Red hot rails”

angela on February 26th, 2007 2:17 pm

See, I’m a “Web skimmer.” Seriously, I have ADD when it comes to Internet surfing and particularly when it comes to video. It’s so hard for me to concentrate for more than a couple minutes …

I’m the same way. Isn’t it depressing? I sometimes feel guilty about it…

But I’ve noticed almost everything I’ve been producing lately is 1:30 or less. So maybe I’m learning better production from my own viewing habits.

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