Until last month, I'd never produced an online slideshow or written a personal essay.

Through a combination of luck, an interesting story, and the good folks at Poynter, I've now accomplished both. The multimedia story about my family's recent trip to England is called "In Search of Murrow's England." (To see how it finally turned out, visit -- http://poynter.org/murrowsearch.)

David Shedden London, November 2006

One of my favorite books is a collection of Edward R. Murrow's broadcast transcripts. The book, "In Search of Light," includes a collection of his World War II radio reports from London.

During our trip, I used Murrow's descriptive CBS radio stories from 1938 to 1946 as a way to understand England and the city of London.  

The Trip Ends and the Essay Begins

I didn't plan to make an online slideshow when I returned from England in November 2006, but that changed the day I came back to the Institute.

Poynter's Kenny Irby announced that he was organizing an Institute workshop about Soundslides, a multimedia program that combines pictures and sound for online presentations. 

Digital Collections and Archives, Tufts University Murrow in London, 1941

On that same day I showed some of my England photos to Bob Steele. A few hours later, Bob mentioned them to Poynter Online editor, Bill Mitchell, who suggested that the photos might make an interesting Soundslides project.

The problem was that I didn't know anything about creating an online slideshow, and until that day, I had never even heard of Soundslides. On top of that, it looked like I was not going to be at the Institute on Dec. 11, the day of the workshop.  

Thankfully, Dave Pierson and Jeff Saffan, who were already familiar with the equipment and software needed for Soundslides, helped me out.

My goal at that point was to compile a very simple history slideshow with a few captions containing Edward R. Murrow quotations.     

But Poynter dean Keith Woods believed there was a bigger story there.

After viewing more than 90 of my photographs, Keith said that, in addition to the Murrow story, I had an opportunity to write a unique personal essay about my son and my family.

I explained that I had never written a personal essay before and I didn't know where to start. Don't worry about the finished essay, Keith explained, just start writing before the trip's small, and perhaps most important details, are forgotten.

He said the story would take shape as I thought about why I took this trip, and why at its end, the trip was so special. 

Soundslides and Audacity

My photo essay, "In Search of Murrow's England," exists because Joe Weiss created Soundslides. I missed his  workshop at Poynter, but with a little help from my colleagues I still managed to learn about his software. By the end of the project, Soundslides combined my photos, narration and music into a Flash file that was posted on the Web.

Soundslides

When Jeff Saffan heard about my photo essay, he very patiently taught me how to use the recording equipment needed for the project. The equipment was a few years old, but it did everything we needed. Jeff let me borrow a Marantz PMD660 digital audio recorder, Shure SM58 microphone, a compact flash card and a Lexar Media/USB 2.0 multi-card reader.

A few of the images used in the final version of the slideshow did not come from my camera.

Digital Collections and Archives, Tufts University Murrow, far left, on Hallam Street, London, 1942

The Digital Collections and Archives department at Tufts University granted me permission to use two of their copyrighted photographs of Edward R. Murrow. Tufts University is the home of the Murrow Collection & Archives at The Edward R. Murrow Center of Public Diplomacy.

You will notice in the lower right-hand corner of the slideshow screen a link to "credits." I not only credit my wife and Tufts University, but I also acknowledge my grandfather's help. He died two years after I traveled to England with him in 1970, but the old black-and-white photo he took in Green Park helped tell my story.

Another challenge was the length of the slideshow. My goal was six minutes. That would be impossible if I failed to reduce my 70 photos down to 40.

Harry Potter posed the most difficult editing choice. Our England trip included two visits to Harry Potter-related locations in London and my son considered this one of the highlights.

But Harry's photos would have lengthened the program to almost nine minutes, and at that length, I doubt even I would have watched my essay until the end. As a result, I'm afraid our young friend from Hogwarts did not survive the final edit.

After I spent a week or so writing notes about the trip, I finished the first draft of the narration. It was too long, so I began editing out sections. My decision to cut material was usually based on whether I had photographs to match the narration.

Whenever I could, I tried to read the narration out loud to myself, since I would ultimately be recording with a microphone. Before creating the final version with Soundslides, I practiced with a Picasa slideshow of the England photographs. This allowed me to adjust the order and timing of the photos and narration.

Once the recording was finished, I transferred the digital audio file of the narration to the laptop computer. Since I had a slight cold when I recorded the narration, the Audacity software helped edit out my coughs and mistakes.    

The Music

Before the narration even begins you hear the opening notes of "Adagio for Strings," by Samuel Barber. The song continues underneath the narration for the rest of the program. 

Audacity

I spent a great deal of time searching for music. My goal was not only that the music play in the background as I read the narration, but also, if possible, that it would come from the same historical time period as Murrow's London broadcasts.

On Sept. 22, 1938, Edward R. Murrow began a tradition that lasted through the war. He opened his radio broadcast with the words, "This is ... London."

A little more than a month later, on Nov. 5, 1938, Arturo Toscanini, the conductor of the NBC Symphony Orchestra, premiered Samuel Barbers' "Adagio for Strings" to radio listeners across the country.

The same audience who heard Murrow's 1938 London rooftop stories on CBS could also listen to the melodic violins and cellos from "Adagio for Strings" on NBC. (National Public Radio recently aired a story about the music's broadcast debut and its selection for the National Recording Registry.)

When I began looking for music, Dave Pierson reminded me that copyright restrictions apply to almost all recorded music, even for a non-profit, educational Web site like Poynter Online. I needed to look for songs with Creative Commons licenses, open-source permissions, or other .mp3/.wav files that you can purchase for production purposes. After some searching, I downloaded an .mp3 copy and paid $60 for the use of "Adagio for Strings" from the RoyaltyFreeMusic Web site.

At one point, Bill Mitchell and I talked about adding some actual CBS Murrow radio excerpts to the narration, but due to copyright restrictions and the cost of the archival audio, we decided against it.

After the "Adagio for Strings" .mp3 file was transferred to my computer, I used the Audacity audio editing program to balance the sound of the music and narration.

The Project is Done

A final version of the photo essay was ready to be compiled.

First, I installed the audio and photo .jpg files into the Soundslides program. During the next few days I made a number of adjustments while viewing the test version. 

Finding the right balance between the images, narration, and music was one of the most important parts of the editing process. I also looked for ways to use silence. Edward R. Murrow possessed an instinctive talent for using short pauses and moments of silence in his London radio broadcasts and later on his CBS television program, "See It Now." 

Bill Mitchell recommended I add SmartFTP software to my computer so I could send the finished Soundslide file to the Poynter Web site. If you plan to post your project on the Web, you obviously must have Web space or a Web page to which you would FTP the file.

If you don't, the finished project can always be viewed on your computer. Recently I talked to someone who planned to give a presentation projecting his final project on a large screen directly from a computer's hard drive, rather than viewing it off a Web page.

The final slideshow has 52 images and lasts eight minutes and 28 seconds. (I never reached my goal of a six-minute slideshow with 40 slides.)

After a few last-minute technical adjustments, the project file was sent and posted.  

My two-week, much-unexpected lesson in multimedia production was over.

In retrospect, I really never knew enough to take on this project. But with the help of some great teachers who gave me the confidence to try something new, I eventually shared my story.   

A Last Piece of Advice

The most important photograph from this trip came after my son William won a game of mini golf in the city of Hastings. He stood on the edge of the English Channel, looked to France, and threw a rock into the water yelling, "I am William the Conqueror (of mini golf)!" 

David Shedden The English Channel, November 2006

After taking the photograph I looked down into the camera's small viewer to see how it looked.

I smiled.

At that moment I realized I had a good photo, but it wasn't until I came home and produced this photo essay that I truly understood how important it was, and what the entire trip meant to me personally. 

Travelers have been sharing stories about trips to England for centuries, and each has described his or her trip using the storytelling tools available at the time, whether it was an early printing press in 1507 or the latest digital cameras and multimedia software in 2007.

Whatever medium you choose, remember that the most important thing is that you take those trips, preserve those memories, and share the stories.