EPJ_Multimedia Critique II

For Multimedia Critique II, I chose PAPARAZZI by Jessica Dimmock

The content of this project is intriguing, and its presentation exhibits “the ghoulish fascination.” Nonetheless, the creator appears to have used multimedia simply because it is available. This project has a potential for a good multimedia work, but the lack of journalistic integrity is a problem.

A paragraph captions what the project is about, but the creator leaves basic 5Ws (who, what, where, when, why) vague. It is possible that the creator could not be specific about those fundamental pieces of information for some reason.

The project does not have an overarching story line. Instead, several video clips are put together into one piece, which is not necessarily a story. There are gaps between the scenes. It is difficult to figure out how those scenes are related to one another. In short, a story, if any, does not flow because of fragmentation.

In the first scene, a guy wearing green T-shirts says something like “he’ll get xxxx the shots.” It is reasonable to assume that this “he” is the main character. But there is not a single character the creator puts an emphasis on. The ending is terrible. A guy on a car curses, and the car just careens onto the highway. It is difficult to see a conclusion from this ending.

The passage of time is confusing.

Overall, the way the project is made appears to be casual.
The user has control of the project. The project starts when the user clicks the thumbnail. The loading speed is good at least on my computer. The user can easily play the project forward or backward by a slide bar or a button. Volume control is nice to be there. Navigation is easy.

The project is loaded on a new pop-up window as the user clicks the thumbnail. This is fine, but when the user clicks another project on the menu, the window disappears behind the menu page. This operation is not user-friendly, and I would change it.
The layout, color scheme and overall presentation fit with the theme of the project and with the overall site. There is nothing problematic.

The overall presentation of the project is good. The layout and color scheme are functional. The user has control of the project. What makes this project less successful is, however, the lack of journalistic integrity. When a multimedia project is not built on the fundamentals of journalism, it becomes an example demonstrating the abuse of multimedia.