EPJ: Multimedia Critique

Middle East by Christopher Anderson

http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/warsanderson

This is one of my favorite multimedia projects. I think it benefits very well from many different possibilities that multimedia technique offers. This is a sole project that was published on Magnum's multimedia. It is not designed as a page, instead it is an element of a page. There is a major visual consistency between the overall language of the page design and the multimedia design. The visual design of Middle East is as simple and beautiful as MagnumInMotion's page. The project starts with a quote form another photographer, which talks about sand and mud wars. This quote actually sets up the mood and context for the upcoming project. Middle East talk about the sand wars that Christopher Anderson photographed in the region. It has a lot of photos in warm colors, in the orange colors of sand. Later we see the photographer's interview as a typical documentary film type talking head format. Lighting of this video matches with the dark mood of the piece and its overall warm colors.

Ultimately the project uses video, still photographs, shots from computer games, animation and text. It is definitely visually rich while telling its story. The editing technique is basically jump cuts form shot to shot, no matter what the material is.

It doesn't seem like a Flash project. The editor probably used a movie editing software for this. The only part that must be done with Flash is the final slideshow controls-play, pause buttons and processing bar. It is simple and almost user friendly. The only negative thing that I can tell about it is that the unclear chapter distinctions. So there are actually two chapters in this piece. First one is the introduction and the second one is the actual piece. But I couldn't tell this until I finished watching the project and tried to replay it. I didn't realize that I had the option to make a choice between chapters. That would be the only thing that I would make clearer for the user.