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Interactive
categories went over big at 58th
Annual Pictures of the Year competition.
There were a
combined 51 entries in the two interactive categories at this
year's POY judging in Columbia, Missouri.
As a new media
producer, and someone who has seen the high quality work that
typically wins this award, I was curious about the judging process
and when given the chance to watch part of the judging, I made
the trek to Columbia last month.
How is it done?
Web entrants are asked to send in a CD or other hard media version
of their site, along with the web address of the project. One
of the most striking things about judging was the presentation
of projects. The judges then sit and watch a large screen projection
of the project as an assistant navigates the mouse and their collective
direction. The judges toss out links to "click" like captains
barking orders to navigate ships into a harbor.
The other most
striking thing was that the projects were viewed on one OS (Mac)
and only in one browser (Netscape 4.7) and through a large multimedia
projector, which makes the screen taller than the judges.
As a producer,
I know two things about the web. First, it's a one-to-one medium.
Unlike television where several people can sit across the room
and watch a linear program together, the web is one person in
front of a screen, making choices about what to read or see or
hear next.
The other thing
I know is that web browsers show web sites differently. We typically
test our projects in a number of web browsers (The Netscapes [4.05,
4.5, 4.7, 6 and 6.01] both on Mac, PC, and Linux) and the Internet
Explorers (4.0 5.0, 5.5 again, on Mac and PC) and a few others
like Opera. And also, 3 or 4 flavors of AOL's built in browser
on Mac' and PC's.
But for this
judging, POY chose to limit the experience to Mac and Netscape
4.7. Which really reinforces the fact that on the web, it is an
audience of one that matters most. In this case, the "one" is
one system viewed by 5 judges.
The judges had
a range of new media experience. Some had build multimedia projects,
others had not. But really impressed me was the time they spent
with each entry. Even if a site didn't immediately grab their
attention, they dug deeper to explore and review it. However,
it usually was true that if a project didn't capture the judges
immediately, the deeper site was just as un-interesting.
The judging
was kind. In most cases, the occasional broken link was assumed
to be functional by the judges. During first round judging, any
judge who felt strongly about a project could request that it
be included in the second round, even in the other judges had
voted it "out". As a result, here are some things I came away
with as general reactions:
1) Big media
houses have finally embraced new media. As you look at the list
of winners, it accurately reflects the number of entrants from
large media organizations. It's odd to me that a media so easy
to publish in, in a contest essentially made up of entries submitted
by individuals, lacked a majority of projects entered by individuals.
I know from my own surfing, lots of quality sites did not enter
the contest.
2) In general,
judges disliked technology for technology's sake. Two projects,
judged back to back, included panoramic interactive photos. The
judges universally disliked the one of photos only, but enjoyed
one which included other story telling elements. As one of the
judges commented, " (if there are) lots of bells and whistles
there better be a tune."
3) Flash is
universal. The use of Macromedia's Flash technology in web projects
is everywhere. The projects used flash seamlessly and in most
cases, the use of Flash added to a project's liability.
4) A universal
dislike seemed to be Flash interactions that completely removed
control from the user. A note to remember, make sure there is
some way to navigate and control flash presentations including:
stop, back to beginning, or jump specific images.
5) Judges seem
to really like flash presentations that teased in an almost
television style - the subject or content of the story. Usually
10 15 seconds in length, these "attract sequences" pulled judges
into the project and gave them an overture to the story.
6) Unlike Flash,
the use of video is still a hodge podge of interfaces, and technology.
One large media company had several entries, and each one used
a different metaphor and interface for video. Even accounting
for different delivery of video (Real, QuickTime and Windows media)
video applications were clumsier than Flash. As interactive sites
use more video, producers will need to have developers take care
of video details behind the scenes in server based scripts to
determine the appropriate format of video, and then show it to
the user consistently.
Carol Guzy's retrospective
collection of photographs won the 58th POY Best Use of Photography
- New Media: Major Media Outlets |
An example of video, note
the pop up screen upper left. There is yet to be defined
a standard interface for video on the web. |
Winning the Best Use of
Photography - New Media: Individuals and Small Groups was
this entry from the Herald Sun in North Carolina. This package
makes a great use of audio to tell the story. The Herald
Sun won 3 awards this year. |
Time Inc. won second place in the Major Media Outlets category
with this package "Beyond the Fall." |
Some of the
projects were photography for photography's sake. Online portfolios
of amazing images caught the judges eyes even when there was a
lack of a story other than "here's my work on line." Others were
photo packages designed to supplement on-line reporting. Audio
seems to be thought of as an add-on, rather than an integral part
of the project. One of the projects I watched had the depth of
audio experience of good public radio reporting, Some used audio
effects to give feed back on mouse clicks (clicks, music notes,
or the over used shutter-motordrive sound), the judges were split
on whether this helped or hurt a project.
The winners
are good projects. The content was interesting. If more individuals
would enter their private stories, next year's POY could be a
very interesting contest.
F.R. "Fritz"
Nordengren
Producer & Co-Founder
New Media for Non Profits
nordengren@nmnp.org
http://www.nmnp.org/
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