For my Final Project, I plan to create a multimedia piece revolving around the teams of the Mens Church League division of the Columbia Rec Sports softball group. The five teams play on Thursday nights in the fall, although most also play for the Columbia summer softball leagues. Four of the teams are directly affiliated with a particular church, while one is composed of men who once attended the same church (several years ago), but have since switched congregations. They remain, however, on the same softball team. I have already taken photos for the story as part of my Picture Story class, and will be returning this week to gather audio and video, and make some more stills.
The story strikes me as one that will work well with multimedia because softball, like most sports, is active enough to necessitate both stills and video (which can be shot from a variety of angles), and offers the opportunity for interviews and for collecting good ambient sound while a game is being played. In addition to the noises of the players and umpires as they go through the procedures of play, the crowd watching the game also provides fodder for the ambient.
I am focusing on this story largely because I feel that the intersection of sports and faith remains a very relevant issue, and one that can be easily explored at a local level. There is a definite air of tradition about the softball leagues in Columbia–the St. Andrews team, for example, has been around for some thirty years–and I would like to tell the story of these five groups while keeping in mind the more broad features.