A Babbler’s Blog

On a Saturday night at 3 am, I decided to play tourist and visit the inaugural edition of the Montreal High Lights Festival’s Art Souterrain: an all night event that showcased art from Quebec and Canada for all to enjoy.

View Larger Map

Interview with Pierre Bellerose, Tourism Montreal

Total time: Runs 1:33

During times of economic recession, the tourism industry can expect to be dealt a harsh blow. This summer, Montreal will likely see fewer tourists during festival season. But according to Tourism Montreal spokesperson Pierre Bellerose, the forecast doesn’t look so grim.

In Cue: “We forecast a 3% of decrease…”
Runs: 0:16
Out Cue: “…in Canada it will be not so bad.”

Not so bad, depending on who you ask. Montreal’s Crescent street merchants will likely be losing business this June, and it couldn’t come at a worse time.

In Cue: “For 2009, we have already the recession…”
Runs: 0:08
Out Cue: “…so it will be tough.”

For over 25 years, the annual Canadian Grand Prix brought thousands of tourists to the city. But last October, Montreal was dropped from the Formula One calendar due to funding problems.

In Cue: “The Circuit du Grand Prix is not…”
Runs: 0:09
Out Cue: “…they are all in recession.”

Still, Bellerose says that the F1 race may be back sooner than later.

In Cue: “We heard that maybe they will…”
Runs: 0:15
Out Cue: “…so it’s a loss.”

Because the sound on the Post piece did not seem to work on my laptop, I decided to compare the NY Times piece with the piece from the Alligator.

Firstly, I must say that I enjoyed both pieces for their individual impact, and that I think each approach worked well for the kind of story being told. That said, I thought that the NY Times piece on Kabul was more powerful visually, as it used only black and white photos throughout the soundslides. I enjoyed the pace of the piece and how it had a good slow rhythm, enough that I could really take the time to observe the pictures and the people in them.

I think this kind of approach works best for covering subjects that require more background information, and this particular combination of informative voice over with simple imagery really gave the viewer more of an idea of the state of Afghanistan by providing as many facts as possible with a variety of complimentary images.

I did however notice that sometimes the voice over did not mesh well with the pictures being shown. For example, there is a part towards the end where the narrator mentions that Afghan families are given poor rations of food, but this is accompanied by a seemingly unrelated picture of a shadow overlooking what seems to be a dead dog. Afterwards, there is mention of families but all we see are pictures of a young girl. Luckily, the voice over contained enough useful information to keep me entertained and interested such that the incongruence of the sound and pictures was no longer that big of an issue.

In contrast, the piece from the Alligator had a much faster pace, but I think this worked well because there was greater use of sound cues and the imagery was simpler. I liked the fact that every time a new image was introduced, a new sound would accompany it, making the viewer feel like her or she was right there in the action of the story. I think at some points, the editing in the audio was very apparent, although I’m not sure the average listener would catch on to this. However, I do think that this piece lacked a lot of breathing room between clips, in that audio interviews with the main character are frequently cut abruptly to feature sound—perhaps a more elongated fade in or out could have fixed this, but again, it could just be the nitpicky sound editor in me.

After having watched both pieces and evaluating the pros and cons, I think the first approach (the NY Times) would work better with the pictures I have gathered, since I was unable to get a good variety of sounds and effects to mix in with voice overs and interviews, as was done in the second piece. I also think my story has a lot of detailed background information that could be better included as a voice over while featuring my photos.

When the economic outlook turns grim, even the most convincing spendthrifts find reasons to tighten their wallets, finding more cost-effective ways to tackle their day to day expenses. For many of those worried about the imminent risk of a recession, one of the first luxury items to get crossed off the budget for this year will be the family vacation or the romantic getaway, which will deal a huge blow to the tourism industry in Canada.
According to the Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC), American tourists accounted for 13.4% of all overnight trips to Canada last year, marking a 2.8% drop from 2002. Despite the fact that the U.S. remains Canada’s most important tourist market, decreases in corporate profits coupled with a weakening of the U.S. dollar have made it clear that that the number of American tourists visiting Canadian cities this summer will likely drop again.
In a city like Montreal, where festivals abound and much of the downtown core relies on tourist revenue alone for year-round survival, the forecast for 2009 is troubling. Over 73,000 people were employed in Montreal’s tourism industry in 2004, with roughly a third working in restaurants and hotels around the city. This represents nearly 9% of the total number of workers employed in Canada’s tourism sector; a sizeable measure for a Canadian city of less than 2 million people.
While it remains to be seen just how much decreases in consumer spending will affect the tourism industry in Montreal and Canada, there is still hope that by summertime, confidence will have increased enough to salvage as many jobs and as much revenue as possible. For this to happen, the city has had to launch a number of projects designed to stimulate the economy in such a way that tourists, especially American ones, will be excited to flock to the northern side of the border and spend their hard earned cash.
After all, a city like Montréal can’t afford to lose its tourists. Montreal is Canada’s second most popular city after Toronto, welcoming millions of visitors each year. In 2004, approximately 13,832,000 people came to visit the city, including 7,339,000 tourists– the majority of them American.
A lack of American tourists will mean a lot less work for the thousands of waiters, bartenders and festival organizers employed in the tourism industry in Montreal this year, which will mean much less revenue for the city itself.
According to Tourism Montreal, American tourist spending declined by 4.3% during the period from 2006 to 2007, accounting for a difference of nearly 24 million dollars in revenue for the city. While the prospects look grim, officials will likely continue to invest as much as possible in promoting activities and attractions around the city in the months to come—otherwise, the city of festivals might not be so festive this year.

Although I felt much of what was covered in this tutorial was more of a refresher than a lesson, I thought it did a good job of reminding me of the frequently overlooked technical aspects of recording sound for an audio project.

I especially liked the fact that this tutorial tackled the issue of sound recording while keeping in mind the broader goal of the journalist, which is ultimately to make an interview subject comfortable enough to share information and provide good quotes.

While I can appreciate all of the suggestions provided, which aim to better the results of any final recorded interview, I have to admit that I have trouble putting them all to good use, especially when having to meet someone in a time crunch and not having the luxury of being fussy about background noise or the location of the interview. I think one of the challenges I must overcome as a young journalist is the fear and uncomfortableness I still sometimes feel when I interviewing public officials or well known figures. Often times, I let myself get caught up with asking the right questions and fail to realize that I may not be paying enough attention to the technicalities. This tutorial helped reinforce that I should be spending just as much time going over the mic placement and picking up ambient sound to make my audio peices stronger.

I would have liked to read more about how to bridge together all 3 kinds of audio and what kinds of things to avoid when writing scripts. Script writing seems to be another weakness I have at the moment and I find myself either repeating what is said in my clips or including information that can simply be deduced from background noise, etc.

Overall, I think this tutorial offered a well needed refresher on the strongest points of any good audio peice. Here’s hoping I can use them all over the next 2 weeks!

In watching and reading the multimedia presentations from the Dallas Morning News and the Las Vegas Sun, I noted a great deal of differences between the two. First, I have to say I enjoyed the Dallas presentation and topic a lot more than I liked the water presentation from Las Vegas, and I think this is mainly because I felt very bombarded by windows and sidebars when watching the Sun’s piece whereas I felt much more comfortable browsing the Dallas videos and print stories.

While the Las Vegas Sun certainly integrated more forms of media (they had video, graphics, maps, print stories, and quick facts you could browse), I almost felt this turned me off from wanting to browse through all of them. I felt as though I would have to sit at my computer for hours to get through all of the tabs, which made the piece seem daunting at first, and I’m not sure I would have browsed as long as I had, had I not been asked to for this assignment. In comparing the sheer wealth of tabs and sidebars to the simplicity of Yolanda’s crossing, I think a more basic layout like the one provided by the Dallas Morning News would have made the presentation more appealing.

That said, I thought navigating the Water piece to be a big complex as I felt I may watch things or read things in the wrong order. I felt this wasn’t the case watching Yolanda’s crossing, which did a better job of keeping the navigation options limited and presented the story in a more coherent manner.

Although some might say that Yolanda’s Crossing failed to use all of the mediums available to tell the story, I thought the integration of print and video was more than enough to capture my attention and make me feel like I was really sitting with this young woman. I think that the nature of the story was such that adding graphics or pictures, along with additional audio would have been distasteful and so I was happy to see the producers kept this to a minimum.

One thing I did notice about interactivity on the Las Vegas site, was that there was a really useful and interesting interactive map that tracked residential water usage included in this piece- however, I only noticed it because I had the patience to scroll down to the second half of the page. I thought this was a very relevant and interesting addition to the piece, but would have opted to put it higher on the page, and have it replace the other maps included on the screen that only seemed to bombard the user.

In terms of stickiness, I felt a lot less compelled to go through the entire presentation about water than I did watching the story of Yolanda. I think this is because the video clips were sometimes too long in the water piece and again, there was too much going on. Watching Yolanda’s crossing, I felt like the clips were just the right length and the story held my attention long enough that I was encouraged to find out more.

Overall, I think both of these pieces have a lot of value and offer the reader/browser a lot of information. I think the key difference here is how it is presented to the user and how it manages to keep the reader/user’s attention.

Secondary Sources

Published in Magazines/Journals:

1. Montreal Feels the Pain. The Globe and Mail, February 6, 2009.

2. Recession Spreads to Canada’s Storefronts. The Globe and Mail, January 30th, 2009.

3. Budget fédéral – Québec ne peut pas payer pour les décisions d’Ottawa, dit Christine St-Pierre. Le Devoir, February 6, 2009.

4. Tourism spending down: Gas prices, weather prompt first decline since 2003 SARS scare. The Gazette, January 13, 2009.

Primary Source Documents

1. Tourism Association of Canada.
2. Canadian Tourism Commission
3. Equipe Spectra
4. Bonjour Quebec
5. City of Montreal

Interview Sources

People I have Already Contacted:

1.Marie-Eve Boisvert
Senior director – media relations
Equipe Spectra
marie-eve.boisvert@equipespectra.ca or 514 525-7732, ext. 5666

I have already contacted Marie-Eve. She will be relevant to my piece because Spectra is a firm that helps organize and promote a number of festivals in Montreal, including the Montreal Jazz Festival, Francofolies, the High Lights Festival, etc. I will definitely record Marie-Eve’s voice but have not decided whether or not I will film her as I’m unsure where I will be meeting her or if she is going to be good on camera. I plan on asking her about the budgets for these festivals, whether or not these have changed due to the recession, and I plan on addressing the question of expected audiences- how many people they think they will attract this year as opposed to next year.

2. Stephanie Theriault
Media Relations Officer- Tourism Montreal
Tel. : 514 873-2015 or Info@bonjourquebec.com

I have already contacted Tourism Montreal. This source will be useful because it will be the best place to get reliable statistics and information about the number of tourists that can be expected this summer, during the peak of the season. Also, Stephanie is very familiar with the media and will be a good candidate for the video and audio portions of my project. I plan on asking Stephanie about concrete numbers of Tourists who visit Montreal annoually, how much revenue this brings into the city, and what the expectations are for this year.

3.Iggy Eichenbaum
Owner of Ziggy’s Pub
Member of the Crescent Street Merchant’s Association
1470 Crescent street
Montreal 514-285-8855

I have already contacted Iggy. I think he will be a great person to interview because he will offer the anecdotal or more personal side of my multimedia project. He will put a human face to the recession and the problems it will bring to store owners and bars that rely on tourism to flourish. I will try and use both audio and video portions of my interview with him in my project- I think he would be a good candidate for audio and video because he’s a great story teller. I plan on asking Iggy about how much he relies on tourists during the summer months for revenue, how much a decline in tourist revenue will affect him, and what he plans to do in the case of a decrease in revenue to keep his business going.

Source ideas I haven’t tracked down yet:

1.Mr. Bernard Ragueneau
President of Crescent Street Merchants Association of Montreal
Thursday’s & l’Hôtel de la Montagne
514-288-5656 or web: http://www.crescentmontreal.com/
This will be a great source to get in contact with to get a feel of what the consequences will be for merchants, given that less tourists are expected to come to Montreal this year. I will likely use the interview with one of the Association’s members as an opportunity to shoot some video. I plan on asking Mr. Ragueneau about how much revenue is generated by tourists along Crescent street and what the impacts of decreased revenue will be.

2.A tourist visiting Montreal and attending a Festival
TBD- I will try and get someone to talk to me at the High Lights Festival

This source will be useful because it will be the best way for me to get in touch with the other side of the story, which is the impact on tourists. I would like to ask this tourist whether or not prices seem to have gone up and whether he or she had always made plans to come to Montreal despite the economic conditions. Depending on the person, I’d like to shoot some video of this interview but I am not sure of who I will get in touch with yet- this may change depending on the person I interview.

3. Marcel Tremblay
Member of the Excutive Committee of the City of Montreal
Responsible for Communications and Special Events
275, rue Notre-Dame Est
bureau 2.116
Montréal H2Y 1C6 514 872-1191

I have yet to successfully get in touch with Mr. Tremblay’s office. However, I think he would be a useful source because he could provide some information about how Montreal plans to spend stimulus money from the federal government to help out struggling industries adversely affected by a decline in tourism. I have yet to decide whether I would use video, but I would most likely take pictures and use the audio from this interview.