This project was a story about a woman from Africa who survived AIDS by taking anti-viral medicines after she had lost two partners and her son to the disease. Also, the story included the news anchor that has helped spread her success story to gain funding for other victims. The technical sides of the project were flawless. The audio was perfectly clear, pictures artistically done and the video even had picture overlays. The video included a button to make it large screen and volume controls with a way to skip to the beginning or end.
The user doesn’t have control of the project, as there is no interactivity besides play or pause buttons and chapters are not included. However, this adds to the simplicity of the story. AIDS isn’t an easy topic to develop with interactivity.
Aside from photographs, the piece had a live video interview which gave it a news story feel for legitimacy, but still kept the photo and personal feel. Photographs were inserted at visually expectant places and when we needed explanations, interview video was played. The slow transitioning of the pictures and the breaking up of pictures in Flash was very well done. I would like to include how some pictures fade-in in pieces in my final project.
The surrounding color scheme was the only thing I hated. The MSNBC logo was necessary, but the bright color montage in the background was distracting and inappropriate for the content. A black background would have been much more effective. A side bar also appeared next to the piece, but was not distracting.
