What about the audience?

Figure 1 We start young enjoying images and expressing ourselves this way.

Back in June 2006 I wrote about Effective Multimedia piece (link)

As professional communicators we usually determined who our audience is, but have we considered how the how they learn?

Today 69% of Americans are visual learners. That only leaves 31% who learn from press releases, articles and other words-alone means of communication. Here is some research on the subject: (link to article)

Successful visual communication is measured not only by aesthetic, but also by the audience’s comprehension. Visual communicators know how to use images to create a sense of tranquility or a feeling of foreboding and tension and everything in between.

Figure 2 My typical gear for a multimedia piece is quite simple. I have other lenses and microphones, but this is the core equipment needed.

Combining the visual and audio compounds and improves the learning process. Picture a photograph of a landscape (pun intended). Photos taken as the light plays over it through the day, the evening and into the night awaken different emotional feelings in the viewer.

Just as changing light impacts a scene so do changes in audio will affect words. The same sentence read by several people using different emphasis and voice inflections can totally change the meaning of the sentence.

Combine these two powerful forms of communication and the outcome is magnified as compared to either one alone.

Many times the still image is more powerful than the moving image simply because it IS still… it “captures the moment.” But there are times when the movement is most powerful.

It takes more time to produce video images than still images. Therefore video images are more expensive. Gathering audio without video is much easier and cheaper. Recording in really close with an inexpensive microphone and recorder only requires one person. To obtain the same quality in a video requires a special microphone and usually two people – more money.

A BIG advantage of multimedia is one person can make the photos and then the same person can do an interview and combine it with the images for the final presentation.

The time and costs are much less than for a video production. As a rule it costs about three to five times more to produce a two to ten minute piece in video than audio/still photo (multimedia) project.

Forget costs for a moment. The New York Times, The Washington Post and even National Public Radio have discovered—the multimedia piece is effective.

Since the web has become the central nervous system for many organizations using the printed word alone is not the most effective medium to communicate with today’s audience.

Figure 3 Photo Tip: Take photos right around dusk and dawn of lighted signs and buildings for a more dramatic look.

Here are a few other reasons for using multimedia (still images and audio) instead of video. A two-minute package for the web for a multimedia package might be about five to seven meg file. The same length of video is thirty to fifty meg file. If you have space issues or the bandwidth of your audience is small video may just be impractical.

The multimedia package file is smaller than video, but the image size isn’t. Usually, the video screen isn't large enough and the frame rate isn't high enough on the Web to capture the nuances of emotion that make some talking-head interviews on television compelling. The composition needs to be is shot tight and show faces mainly.

However, the still image can be larger and still capture the nuances of emotion. Video over the web is supplying at least fifteen frames a second or 1800 images for a two minute video verses a two minute multimedia package will have thirty to sixty frames total on average.

If: (1) 69% of the audience learns visually.

(2) More people can view a multimedia package than video.

(3) More audience is reached regularly with a multimedia package.

(4) While video is effective, it isn’t as effective on the web as on TV if the audience doesn’t have a really high-speed connection.

(5) While text is easier to deliver over the web—whose reading it?

Conclusion: Choose multimedia not because it cost less, but because it is often more effective.

Here is an example I did recently for Chick-fil-A http://www.stanleylearystoryteller.com/DaddyDaughter