Multimedia Story: Form and Elements

Two basic types of multimedia stories

1. Reporter-driven
 Those in which a reporter is in charge of putting the story together. The
story is usually a daily beat story, a feature or part of an investigative
series or special project.
 The reporter — sometimes called a “backpack journalist” — goes into the
field and uses his digital video camera as a multimedia reporter’s
notebook.
 He gathers video clips, video from which to grab still photos, audio, and
information that will go into text and graphics. The story is in his head,
and he makes the basic decisions on how to assemble the pieces that make
up the whole.
2. Editor- or Producer-driven
 Those in which the editor/producer is in charge, generally breaking news
or special projects. The editor assigns individuals to produce pieces of a
breaking news story, e.g. tornadoes damaging a city.
 He asks a photographer for photos, a reporter to go into the field to do
interviews, a videographer to go into the field and film the destruction,
another reporter to gather information by phone, and a graphic artist to
produce maps and illustrations. The story’s in his head, and he makes the
basic decisions on how to assemble the pieces that make up the whole.

Elements // Process of Making Multimedia Stories

1. Choosing a Story
 Not all stories make good multimedia stories. The best multimedia stories
are multi-dimensional. They include action for video, a process that can be
illustrated with a graphic (e.g., “how tornadoes form” or “how this new
surgery works”), someone who can give some pithy quotes for video or
audio, and/or strong emotions for still photos and audio.
 Before reporters venture into the field to shoot a story, they gather as
much information as possible to put together a rough storyboard – an
outline of the story that lays out the multimedia possibilities. This means
 doing a preliminary interview with the source or sources for background,
getting a basic idea of what to expect in the field, and looking up anything
the sources have published in print or on the internet.

2. Storyboarding
 A storyboard is a sketch of how to organize a story and a list of its
contents.
 A storyboard helps you (1) define the parameters of a story within
available resources and time, (2) organize and focus a story, and (3) figure
out what medium to use for each part of the story.
 A rough storyboard doesn’t have to be high art – it’s just a sketch. And it
isn’t written in stone – it’s just a guide.
 What storyboarding does is help point out the holes in the story. It helps
producers to identify the resources (time, equipment, assistance) they’ll
need to complete the story, or how they have to modify the story to adjust
to their resources.

3. Fieldwork
 Most multimedia stories require the reporters to go into the field to report
the story face-to-face with sources, rather than doing a story entirely by
telephone.
 They collect as many available visuals — photos, videos, maps and
graphics — as they can from their own sources or from the Web.

4. Editing
 This is the time to make decisions about exactly what information is going
into video, audio, still photos, graphics and text.
 In print, they generally write the story and then find or assign photos to
illustrate or augment the text. In television, they pick out the best visuals,
write a script, then begin adjusting each until they work together.

5. Assembling the Story

Reporters usually put the most important parts of the story toward the top,
identifying which people and places are the most important to be
photographed, reviewing graphic information to see if and where it fits into
the story. Just as graphic designers then take all that information and develop
a layout for print, so they can improve their rough multimedia story layout to
make it more pleasing to the eye and help communicate better what they’re
trying to convey.

Digital Storytelling: 7 elements

1. Point of View 
 What is the main point of the story and what is the perspective of the
author?
2. A Dramatic Question
 A key question that keeps the viewer's attention and will be answered
by the end of the story.
3. Emotional Content
 Serious issues that come alive in a personal and powerful way and
connects the audience to the story.
4. The Gift of Your Voice
 A way to personalize the story to help the audience understand the
context.
5. The Power of the Soundtrack
 Music or other sounds that support and embellish the story.
6. Economy
 Using just enough content to tell the story without overloading the
viewer.
7. Pacing
 The rhythm of the story and how slowly or quickly it progresses.

Educational digital stories have somewhat different criteria than the original
Seven Elements for Digital Stories. They’ve added a few more elements to the
Seven Elements defined by CDS to make them more appropriate to the sorts
of digital stories generated by students. Below are the changed components:
1. The Story's Overarching Goal
2. The Narrator's Point of View
3. A Question or Questions That Are Dramatic
4. Content Selection 5. Voice Clarity 6. Narrative Pacing
7. Incorporation of a Meaningful Audio Score
8. Image, video, and other multimedia elements of high quality
9. The Story's Economy of Detail
ten. Appropriate Grammar and Language Usage

Reference:

Stevens, J. (2020). Tutorial: Multimedia Storytelling: Learn the Secrets From Experts.
Graduate School of Journalism, University of Berkeley. Retrieved from
https://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/tutorials/starttofinish/

The 7 elements of digital storytelling. Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling. (n.d.).

Retrieved September 12, 2021, from https://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/page.cfm?
id=27&cid=27&sublinkid=31.