Exclusivo: Te presentamos “Megagráfico“

Estamos terminando un año poderoso, con muchas cosas que quedaron en el camino, para bien y para mal. Fue un año largo, con gente que se fue, con otros que quedaron y otros nuevos que llegaron. Entre los que llegaron a Visualmente tuvimos el lujo de sumar a Alvaro Liuzzi, quien nos contó lo qué hubiese pasado si Rodolfo Walsh hubiese tenido a su alcance las herramientas digitales de publicación que tenemos hoy los periodistas, para contar los avances de su investigación sobre los fusilamientos de José León Suárez.
A los pocos días, hablamos por Facebook con el infógrafo español Carlos Gámez Kindelán, del sitio de noticias y últimas hora lainformacion.com sobre su nueva creación, el Megagráfico, que tiene ciertos puntos de contacto con lo que decía Ian Bogost, en un reportaje exclusiva de Visualmente.
Ese espíritu jugable que proponía el norteamericano Bogost, y que podríamos encontrar en infografías como el Googleopoly, el Juego de Rocanrolla o el Mandala de Jobs, hoy podemos encontrarlo en la propuesta de Gámez Kindelán.
"Este fin de semana hemos estrenado una nueva forma de visualizar información, con motivo del estreno de “Boardwalk Empire“, la exitosa serie de Martin Scorsese. Se trata de un formato para visualizar infografías de gran tamaño que hemos bautizado como “Megagráfico“. Gracias a las nuevas tecnologías, el usuario podrá pasear por nuestros contenidos gráficos más espectaculares".
Ese primer acercamiento a la ciudad de Atlantic City, ciudad en la que se desarrolla la historia, incluye, entre otras cosas, un visualizador interactivo para navegar por la infografía, arrastrando el gráfico o haciendo zoom sobre él, conociendo las estadísticas y la información más completa de la ciudad más peligrosa de EE.UU., de los años veinte.
Además, en el medio de la charla se filtró su nuevo cargo, el de Visual Thinker, dentro de la publicación online española. "Se trata de dar nombre a un nuevo perfil de infografista multimedia. Hago gráficos a corto, medio y largo plazo. Para online fundamentalmente pero también para papel. Trabajo para secciones comerciales y de marketing, para publicidad. Además de para el medio periodístico. Investigo y analizo, entrevisto, y coordino y siempre, siempre pienso visualmente. Intento adaptar la información a cualquier formato que tenga que ver con lo audio-visual y con lo interactivo. No importa si se trata de un formato y una narrativa más tradicional o si es un formato más innovador. Siempre trato de darle primero valor a la información y así elegir su apropiado formato. Cada tipo de información tendrá así una orientación u otra. Ya sean datos, estadísticas, banners, gráficos ilustrados, procesos automatizados, 3D, o lo que venga".
Sobre todo esto y sobre la nueva sección de La Información, Megagráfico, Carlos Gámez Kindelán escribirá un poderoso post en exclusiva para Visualmente. Será éste sábado.

Walking the talk

(Por Elio Leturia) TWELVE JOURNALISM PROFESSORS were welcomed in early June in El Paso where the temperature hit 110 degrees. “Summer started earlier for me,” I thought.
We all had been selected to participate in a multimedia training geared to journalism professors who teach in cities with a large Hispanic population. The chosen states? California, Florida, Texas and Illinois. Thanks to a grant provided by the Dow Jones fund, the Borderzine.com publication organized this training at the University of Texas, in the border town of El Paso. The goal of this experience was to learn and practice new storytelling skills though the use of current technology.
The participants had different journalistic experiences. Some were specialized in photography, writing, broadcast or radio, to name a few. Coming from the premise that a modern journalist needs to become a “know-it-all” (that’s what the current media organizations are looking for and recruiting,) academics need to go beyond their fields of specialization and learn about more ways to communicate.
We got to the Lone Star state on Sunday, June 6 and left on Saturday, June 12. We had five really intensive days of work ahead of us, and we were all ready for the challenge.
This is how the training went:

DAY 1. Class started at 8:30 a.m. This first day we received instruction in audio gathering, digital photography and Photoshop. With an hour for lunch, we continued this training until 6 p.m. We were organized in groups of three people each and were given a topic to base our projects on. My team, formed by the photojournalist John Freeman, multimedia professor Elizabeth Marsh and I, a visual journalist, got “The Mexican Revolution” topic. Each participant chose a platform: audio, video and photography.
We brainstormed ideas and decided on three approaches to the subject matter: John would work on a video presenting how El Pasoans were getting prepared to celebrate the occasion, Elizabeth would produce a radio clip on how much the locals knew about the Mexican Revolution and if so, what they were doing to celebrate it, and I, a photo and audio show on a poster exhibit at an art gallery in El Paso that presented work related to the Mexican Revolution.
That night we researched the centennial of the 1910 Mexican Revolution to prepare for the interviews.

DAY 2. In the morning we discussed our assignment topic and the platforms we were going to use. I had photography. As this was the reporting day, we had three interviews lined up: the Consul General of Mexico at El Paso, the Cultural Attaché of the consulate, and the gallery curator of the exhibit. First, we visited the downtown area looking to interview people for the radio clip and to gather audio. We stopped at a flea market where we talked to locals. Later, at the consulate, we interviewed folks who were waiting to be helped by the consular officials.
Our first big interviewee was Roberto Rodríguez, Consul General of Mexico. That interview was conducted in English. Then, it was the Cultural Attachés turn, Enrique Cortázar, who preferred to be interviewed in Spanish. These are the opportunities when I really value to be bilingual. Then we went to the art gallery and interviewed the director Kate Bonasinga, in English. This exhibit had actually two shows: the first on old posters from Mexican artists that dealt with the Mexican Revolution and the second, posters of modern Mexican artists who created their posters inspired by social issues that incite change.
I had brought a digital recorder along with my camera so I was recording audio as well. Since the poster exhibit was my topic I used my time wisely, interviewing and photographing at the same time. I actually needed a third arm in order to multitask.
We went back to the classroom to download the materials to the computers.

DAY 3. We started with training in digital video-post production and Final Cut Pro, followed by audio production training. After lunch I started editing the audio I had gathered the day before by using Garage Band. There was a problem: some interviews were significantly different in volume level, so I spent a big chunk of time adjusting the sound levels to make it even. Then I wrote a script for a voice over to present the piece and for another portion where I added more information using it as a transition to unite two sequences. After a short rehearsal I recorded the voice over at a studio, split it in two parts and added it to the audio track. Then I finally exported it so it became one unit.
I left the classroom at 8 p.m.

DAY 4. I worked on the photo editing. I chose 92 photos from the photo shoot and opened each one in Photoshop. I cropped and toned them appropriately so all of them would be sharp, even, well balanced and clear. That took several hours.
Then I imported to iMovie the audio track I had made the day before. At that moment I wasn’t feeling too confident to edit my piece in FinalCut Pro, instead of iMovie, since we only had three hours of instruction. We all were rushing against time.
I started placing the photos in iMovie and creating a sequence by aligning them to the sound track. This is the part where I synchronized image and audio. At this point I was putting the whole package together.
By that time it was 9:30 p.m. and we had to leave the lab.

DAY 5. All the participants needed to have our projects ready at 3 p.m., so time was of the essence.
I worked on the timing given to each of the photos, adding the Ken Burns effect to offer more dynamism to the static photography (you have to be careful where you do it, otherwise it becomes too distracting) and also worked on the credits and lower-third information (to identify the subjects in the story.) Some photos needed more time on the screen, especially the ones that present written content (like the posters do,) so I had to be careful with that. One of my interviewees spoke in Spanish so that sequence needed subtitles in English. Be mindful of the font and type size you want to use.

This whole process gave me a real life experience of how involved and time-consuming can a multimedia production be. I always took into consideration the length of the piece. We were not supposed to go over 3 ½ minutes. My piece lasts 3 minutes and twenty-three minutes. You can see it here!

Working with multimedia

(Por Elio Leturia) NOWADAYS, IN THE JOURNALISM world, multimedia is the word. People talk about audio, video, interactivity, motion graphics, slide shows. It seems that everybody has a blog and is immersed in social media. But how many people really know how to work with multimedia effectively? Does it mean that just because you have a video camera, a voice recorder or a photo camera that you can do good quality multimedia?
That’s kind of like saying that just because you have a blog, you are a reporter or a journalist.
I have been exploring different communication platforms for a while. Most of my experience had been with the printed word. With the world changing and forecasters saying that nobody reads anymore (it’s so easy to say such things without providing solid proof), I decided to branch out and tap into the audiovisual training I received as an undergrad.
I started my career as a writer and then learned to be a designer. I also did photography and informational graphics. I did some illustration. I produced a radio program and did some acting. I wanted to be able to design what I write, to combine those skills to make of myself a more complete journalist, both in Spanish and English. It has been a journey, especially when English is my second language.
But the Internet and other changes in the journalism world made it necessary to adapt to other technologies. I was not a complete journalist anymore. Because of all the changes, I’ve had to alter my goal of being both a visual and a word person who speak two languages. I need to add movement and sound to my world.
I have been exploring audio and video for a while. Living in a world that multitasks has made me aware that I need learn more skills. The problem is that I’ve never been much of a generalist, someone who knows a little about everything instead of a lot about one thing. If I am a writer, I want to be a very good writer. If I am designer, I want to be a very good designer. Now I am on my way to being a good multimedia producer. Life keeps challenging me, which is good.
In order to do that, I need to polish my skills. Some people take a picture with a point-and-shoot camera, upload it directly to a website and say, “I am a multimedia person!” The same goes with people who shoot video with a Flip camera and feel immediately smug as soon as they've uploaded it. Look out, Hollywood!
I think there’s more to it than that. A good multimedia professional needs to know how to take good pictures, crop them, tone them, resize, format and adapt them to the appropriate platform. He or she also needs to take good video and audio and learn how to appropriately edit it in order to create a good story. All this comes, of course, after doing excellent reporting.
To do this effectively you need not only skills but also time … precious time.

La web 2.0 en clave visual y multimedia

Con una potencia visual similar a la de Epic 2015, pero sin el impacto que aquel lograba con sus predicciones sobre el futuro, este video hecho por Michael Wesch, profesor de antropología cultural en la Universidad de Kansas, es una de las explicaciones más claras que hemos visto sobre la web 2.0. Imperdible.

Contenido multimedia: cuándo y cómo usarlo

Ahora que Internet ofrece múltiples posibilidades para el diseño de información online, el problema no es una cuestión de falta de recursos, sino de saber cuándo usar cada uno de ellos.
Con esta cuestión en mente, la gente del consorcio DiSEL (Digital Story Effects Lab) se largó a realizar un estudio de campo: compararon la reacción de los usuarios frente a dos diferentes formas de presentar la información a las que recurrió la BBC para informar sobre un mismo tema: los efectos sobre la salud de las drogas “recreativas” (alcohol, speed, entre otras). Por un lado, una presentación estática, al estilo enciclopédico. Por el otro, una presentación interactiva. Veamos algunas de las conclusiones, reseñadas en un artículo reciente de la Online Journalism Review.

• Las presentaciones interactivas funcionan mejor cuando lo que se busca es que los usuarios:

- le dediquen más tiempo a la presentación
- describan la experiencia como “placentera”
- recuerden más información
- recuerden una marca
- se entretengan


• Las presentaciones estáticas, en cambio, son mejores cuando el objetivo es que los usuarios:

- exploren todas las posibilidades y materiales que ofrece la presentación
- perciban que la navegación y exploración de la presentación es simple


• Ambas son igualmente efectivas respecto a lograr que los usuarios retornen al sitio en busca de más contenido.

El artículo también comenta alguna de las conclusiones del Eyetrack III respecto al uso de contenido multimedia.

• Las presentaciones interactivas funcionan mejor cuando se busca que los usuarios recuerden en forma más efectiva términos no familiares y procedimientos o procesos.


• Los textos estáticos son más efectivos cuando el objetivo es que los usuarios recuerden información factual específica, como nombres, lugares o fechas.

A la manera de las revistas femeninas para adolescentes, la nota finaliza con un test simple y breve que permite a los editores y diseñadores decidir cuándo es más conveniente recurrir a una presentación multimedia e interactiva. Así que ya sabés, la próxima vez que tengas dudas, aquí puede llegar a estar la solución.