A look at the growing ‘love lock’ trend taking over Paris’ most famous bridges. Couples come from all over the world to attach their padlocks to the Pont de l’Archevêché and Pont des Arts. After engraving their names the lovers then throw away the keys into the Seine River, supposedly representing undying love.
Creating my audio slideshow: The love locks of Paris
From my time in Paris I managed to record some interviews, sounds of the Seine river and other background noises along the bridges. I also took a large selection of photographs.
To create my slideshow I’ve made firstly, a plan of action, numbering the images into the order I’d like to view them, and recording the voiceover I’d like to play over some parts.
I will use Audacity to edit my voice recordings and Final Cut Pro to lay out the images and audio to make my final audio slideshow.
Relating to one of my previous posts, about Bill Cunningham’s “Water Dance”, I will use the cross-fade transitions to differ between images, especially portrat to landscape orientations.
I will also use some text in places, especially when pronouncing the Pont de l’Archevêché and the Pont des Arts in the voice overs!!
Audio slideshow guidance
Whilst looking through the several helpful links on Jim’s blog, one of the most useful whilst putting my slideshow together would be 10,000 Word’s ’5 Common photo slideshow mistakes’ for it’s guide on the production stage.
In regards to the guide’s first point, I took lots of photos which I will try to edit so each image shows between 3-8 seconds, so there is not a shortage nor overcrowding of images.
Secondly, I have taken photos which relate to the things my interviewees are talking about, including photos of themselves which I will introduce first.
Thirdly, I will also added captions when pronouncing the places in which the ‘love locks’ are placed, as my French accent isn’t the best and to let the viewer identify with the image and the names of the bridges I mention.
Ragarding the fourth point, I will try to avoid awkward photo transitions, using the cross fades which Bill Cunningham’s Water Dance has achieved. By choosing breaks in speech and topic to change with it the images, this doesn’t mislead or interrupt viewing.
Lastly, even though I will use the busker’s accordian tunes in the background of some of my speech, I will reduce the volume so this doesn’t become overpowering or distracting. When I recorded my commentary there were also sounds of the flowing River Seine, which again I do not think will overpower the speech. However in some of my interviews, cars and a siren drove past which is very annoying but I have tried to edit this in Audacity to reduce the distraction this might cause.
Overall I think this guide has been really useful in helping me achieve the professional audio slideshow I want, however maybe some points on interview techniques need to be given, including using wind shields and keeping away from busy traffic and other loud sounds.
Audio Slideshow inspiration
After taking a look at the photographs I captured of the love lock bridges during my stay in Paris, I noticed I had mistakenly taken some in portrait view rather than landscape. When piecing my slideshow together I found I wanted to use some of the portrait images, but wondered if this would have an erratic effect on my slideshow. I remembered that in one of our workshop lessons, Jim showed us one of Bill Cunningham’s characteristically charming audio slideshows for the NYT. After watching his amusing slideshow “The Water Dance”, with people jumping and skipping their way through the snow and sludge of New York’s avenues, I found he was using a combination of portrait and landscape snapshots to document his subject. I think the cross-fade transitions allow the viewer to ignore the different orientations, and this is what I would like to achieve in my own work.
Screenshot from Bill Cunningham’s “The Water Dance” for the NYT
Visit the audio slideshow here, or click the image above.
Also Bill Cunningham’s new documentary is brilliantly humorous must see! The DVD is on sale now, watch the trailer here:
Audio Slideshows
I’ve found whilst scouring the internet that many audio slideshows are, in my view, quite dull and are based on topics with little interest. A clear example of this is the Guardian’s travel audio slideshows, which is updated every other month with dull features. Some may be interesting, including one from the 9th of March, following the story of buskers using unused bandstands in London. However, slideshows such as ‘The M25 tour’, which simply tells the story of a tiring, boring, coach journey along London’s orbital, detailing lane closures, traffic and quick pit stops. I don’t understand how this is particularly newsworthy, we all know how traffic builds up along London’s motorways, many tourists choose to use the Underground as a form of transport and finally, we already have the Coach Trip series to see the goings on onboard a coach.
The best audio slideshows can be found on the New York Times website. The audio slideshows are produced regularly for the website and are a clever combination of interesting topics and characteristic narrators, including the legend that is Bill Cunningham.
Possible audience research – Tourism in Paris: Key Figures
Tourism in Paris: Key Figures Report
Found at the Paris Convention and Visitors Bureau.
“In 2011, Parisian tourist activity reached record levels, with 36.9 million hotel overnights, i.e an increase of 3.1% compared to 2010″
“44.5% of overnights in Parisian hotels recorded were business overnights”
“With 15.6 million arrivals in 2011, the number of clients staying in hotels in Paris rose by 3.1% compared to 2010.”
“Discovering Paris by strolling through the different districts is the principal reason for visiting the city cited by the visitors questioned(46%).”
“40% of tourists cite visiting museums and monuments as their reason for coming to Paris.”
This information shows that there is a growing tourism rate in Paris, of which 44.5% is business related. Therefore the other 65.5% must be largely leisure related. The report also mentions that 86% of visitors questioned said that they liked to explore the city, whether it be strolling through its districts or visiting attractions.
I tried to look for statistics on the amount of couples visiting Paris, or on a wider note, how many couples are in the world, of which I was unsuccessful. It is obvious however, that the topic of ‘The love locks of Paris’, must hold some sort of human interest, with a growing amount of people visiting Paris for leisure, and where a large proportion of the population, will at some point in their lives meet a partner.
Also, the report stated the top visited Paris museums and monuments in 2010 including figures:
1. Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris – 13,650,000
2.Basilique du Sacré Cœur de Montmarte – 10,500,000
3. Musée du Louvre- 8,346,361
4. Tour Eiffel – 6,700,000
Since the Pont de l’Archevêché overlooks the Notre Dame (the most visited attraction), and the Pont des Arts does the same with the Louvre (the third most visited), we can see that both bridges will be crossed and used excessively.
Visiting Paris
I will be visiting Paris on the 25th March until the 28th. My plan is on the first day of being there I will go to the two bridges the Pont de l’Archevêché and the Pont des Arts (the map is below). I’ll take a variety of photos, including close ups of the padlocks and long shots of the bridges. I’ll also hopefully get some interviews with couples putting padlocks on the bridge.
View Larger Map
Click on the blue pointers for more information.
Individual project idea
Source: photos4travel
Since I am visiting the city of love, Paris, in a few weeks time, I wanted to base my project around this. I want to challenge myself in a different city, creating an idea which is of human interest.
Whilst researching places to visit for my itinerary, I found the ‘Love Lock Bridge’ one otherwise known as the Pont des Arts and the other, Pont de l’Archevêché. From the research I have conducted across tourist websites and photographs, I have found that lovers engrave their names on a padlock and attach it to the railings. Then, by throwing the key into the Seine river, this is said to symbolise an undying love for eachother.
After coming across various news articles online I’ve found out that in 2010, The City Hall expressed their negativity towards the locks, threatening to remove them from the bridges. After the overnight removal of several thousand locks, couples caused a backlash and have since built up their love tokens once again.
I’ve abandoned my infographics ideas as I feel this topic has more strength to a much wider audience. I’m hoping to now create some sort of audio slideshow, including high quality photographs to develop the story of the love lock bridge, couples attaching their locks and maybe the odd lover desperately hacking at a lock with bolt cutters. Audio descriptions and interviews with couples will sit alongside this.
These are a few inspirational photographs I have found whilst scouring the net.
Here are some links to the websites I have used to find out more about the ‘love lock’ trend:
Forbes: Love Padlocked in Paris
Reuters: Paris scorns lovers with scour of romantic bridge
Huffington Post: Paris Love Locks By Ronda Carman
Telegraph: Paris to remove love padlocks from Pont des Arts bridge
Total idea change
I’ve just found out I’m going to be visiting Paris for my birthday in a few weeks time. Think I will take advantage of this opportunity and challenge myself to produce something from here, but what? I’m going to start on my itinerary tonight and see what interesting places/stories/people I can find, and so should I come up with some ideas by tomorrow.
Infographics + fashion
I’ve found it quite difficult to think of something I might like to produce for my second AOM coursework. I decided to take inspiration from Tim’s lecture on audio visualisations, datajournalism and infographics. After some searching I found an interesting infographics piece on the timeline of luxury fashion:
I really enjoyed this video from the creative animation to the suiting audio music and sounds. I’d like to find out if I could achieve something similar, using this as my inspiration.
More visuals include:
Connecting fashion bloggers with advertisers. Although the audio can be quite confusing with all the things going on on-screen, I found the visuals really sophisticated and quirky:
Fyodor Golan in connection with DHL Express creates a creative infographic on the international elements taken to design one of their most iconic couture dresses. I like this visual too as the audio isn’t overpowering, the graphics are fun and have more elements of the data journalism seen in Tim’s examples:
