Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
natural beauty around us juxtaposed with the needless manmade destruction to
showcase the hypocrisy of it all.
I created this presentation before the dawn of the digital age, when personal computers
were not yet used in schools. So, when I say slides I mean real slides: 35mm
transparencies that loaded into a round slide projector called a carousel. The
presentation used two carousels working in sync to achieve the effect of a smooth cross-
dissolve transition between slides. I added a pre-recorded sound track and
synchronized the music and images with the transitions on a single screen. It was
simple, beautifully visual, and highly effective. The resolution of the photographic images
was fantastic. It looked nearly as good as anything created today—but it was a ton of
work and the presentation could not really be shared unless I lugged around a bunch of
equipment with my teacher's help.
Since this was about eight years before Microsoft released PowerPoint, I had no
examples of how to create and deliver a multimedia presentation. Instead, I tried to
glean visual storytelling and reporting techniques from network news programs and
documentary films. The idea of using bullet points and long lines of text never occurred
to me. The slides, after all, were to be a visual augmentation of the narrative. The slides
were meant to illustrate, show evidence, and evoke emotions.
Instead of titles and bullet points, my instructor talked about research, evidence,
structure, and story—about having a point that moves people from point A to point B. The
photographic slides produced by my 35mm camera were the only visuals I was allowed
to use for the assignment.
Since film was expensive—and I had to wait two weeks for the slides to return from the
lab—I thought carefully about the story I wanted to tell and the types of images I needed
to support my argument, make my case, and tell my story. Only after I did my research
and completed the plan on paper, did I set out with my camera to find evidence of the
problem, taking pictures of what society had to lose (the beauty) and evidence of the
threats to it (the pollution).
Long before I ever heard of concepts such as the cognitive load theory or the dual
channels of cognition, like most students, I knew intuitively and through experience that
quality images plus narration was better than narration plus a lot of text on a screen,
even though I was years away from experiencing “death by PowerPoint.”
