The New Standard Set by Multimedia at Spectator

We put in a lot of hours at the Spectator, and sometimes we find that we haven’t sufficiently advertised to readers some of the products we’re most proud of. So, allow us a moment to describe one of those products:

As we are all coming upon spring break and getting ready for a bit of relaxation before the second half of the semester sets in, I wanted to take the time to reflect upon how many times my jaw has dropped looking at the amazing multimedia pieces we have created this semester. The introductions, the transitions, and the sound quality have been second to none within the college-daily “world.” I mean, can you honestly find the difference in quality between this multimedia piece on Obama from Spec to this New York Times video piece on Hillary?

At the beginning of the new year and the new 132nd Managing Board’s tenure at Spectator, the online section was the largest it had ever been, with nine total staffers. At the moment, we have grown to a total of five associate editors, five deputy editors, and myself, along with two new potential recruits to be interviewed after spring break. This means a lot for a section which only had one staffer this time last year.

During our first night of production, on Jan. 21, 2008, myself and my two multimedia deputies clocked in nearly 12 hours—from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. that is—to create our first big splash in the world of multimedia with this Manhattanville multimedia feature. The link received a record number of page views (which now currently stands at 3,128) and the e-mails and Facebook messages filled with praise wouldn’t stop. Excited, we held on tight to the momentum that got us through that first night and succeeded in turning out more multimedia features every week thereafter.

Now, I’m sure many individuals would like to know the details of how we work to create these pieces. They exist largely because of the talented Isabelle Mills-Tannenbaum, whose dedication and creative flair are second to none. Isabelle was the first staffer to develop the extremely professional pieces you see now. Through hours of dedicated work, Isabelle works with our associates and the content staffers to:

1. Plan multimedia features for all of the content sections along with some of our own.
2. Record ambient or interview-style sound with our high-quality digital recorder and microphone.
3. If the audio is not in English, it must be translated, as with the Luis Espinal interview found in our Manhattanville supplement with excellent Spanish-English translation by Isabelle.
4. Each photo taken by the photographer must be cropped and edited to produce a final product that looks professional and crisp.
5. An initial “title” slide is created. Special effects and text are added to the first photo to be used in the set.
6. The audio track for the project must be cut and edited within an audio editor to allow for the perfect timing.
7. Next, we drop all of the selected photos into our multimedia Flash template along with the edited audio track. The photos must be arranged and set to transition at the perfect moment along with the audio.
8. Finally, the credits slide is added, the article is created, and the project is complete!

Multimedia projects can take any amount of time from only a couple of hours to many, many hours. Obviously the intensity of the piece will always vary and the Online section is very happy to take on any challenge presented to it.

So… as you can see it’s taken quite a bit of work to create what you see on this beautiful page today. We hope you enjoy it!