When I talked with underwater photographer Tony Wu late last night (early this morning for the Japan-based Wu), he agreed with Ian Shive that making quality multimedia — from stills, video or both — is all about the story. To illustrate his point, Wu directed me to his fantastic blog covering underwater photography and therein to “A Very Hungry Frogfish,” one of his first experiments in multimedia storytelling
If you haven’t yet put together a multimedia piece, or are in need of inspiration, I strongly recommend you watch this wonderful Frogfish-staring piece by Wu. “It’s a good illustration of nothing mattering more than the story,” Wu told me, which is the exact sentiment Shive had shared (not to mention everyone else I have interviewed on the topic).
“Yeah, the audio sucks and the video processing is no good,” Wu shared in his slow, calm, thoughtful manner of speaking. “But the end result achieves what I wanted, which was to make people laugh, and to get people to emotionally relate to a fish.”
I definitely laughed. I definitely was not distracted or put off by the low-tech nature of the piece. For “Frogfish” Wu only used a handful of stills (patiently captured over more than an hour and a half), Wu’s voice-over narration and endearingly simple “special effects.”
“Frogfish” has a simplicity the resonates like the experience of the best children’s books, which (as my sister-in-law, who is a children’s librarian will tell you) are some of the greatest books out there.
“There’s no way I could have conveyed this story with one picture, or words alone,” Wu said. “People really get it.”
Not Being Overwhelmed by Overwhelming Technology
