by Jeff Jarvis
Go right now to see Jonathan Harris’ experiment in storytelling: an Alaskan whale hunt. Jonathan took photos at least every 5 minutes for the week of the tale, which itself is a unique means of using the camera to capture the story, freeze-drying moments instead of memories. Then he returned and created a stunning interface to display his 3,214 photos — many of them stunning — enabling you to explore by time, by image, by adrenalin (how many photos he took in a given scene, mimicking his heartbeat), by characters, and by concept tags (for example, blood). I dabbled at first, poking my head into the story here and there, randomly or by tags. But then I had to watch the whole thing. So I recommend heartily that you go over and explore yourself.
I haven’t decided yet what I think about the form. There’s no question that it is compelling, engrossing, informative, entertaining, beautiful. It’s an unqualified success. What I don’t know is how this translates — or should translate — into other stories. Newspaper online sites tend to use slideshows
too much, just because the internet lets them. I have no doubt that Jonathan’s work will spread around that world and photo editors and online producers everywhere will trip over themselves to mimic it. But this was a special story, an extreme story; that’s one reason why Jonathan picked it. He says in his
statement that he wanted an “epic personal experience” to translate onto the internet. He also wanted to mimic the cadence of computers gathering and displaying data, since he forces them to do that with his online work. “I was interested in reaching some degree of empathy with the computer, a constant thankless helper in my work,” he says, which may be going an inch too far, but I think what he means is that this will give him an even better understanding of how machines can help tell stories.What I’m trying to say, think about what new ways stories can be told now that we no longer are forced to choose one medium or another. But first,
go watch the hunt.Jeff Jarvis on
Buzzmachine
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