Multimedia journalism

New York Times uses 3D animation to recreate Taliban kidnapping

• español

I finally got the chance to watch the entire “Held by the Taliban” series by the New York Times, and I especially enjoyed the 3D animation recreating their escape in the last installment. Now that the entire series has been rolled out, take 10 minutes to watch the six brief videos. This is an excellent example of how to successfully recreate past events using maps, stock photos and video, and 3D animation.

I wrote about the difficulty of recreating past events with multimedia back in August, and showed a couple examples on how to do it right. The “Held by the Taliban” series can now also be added to that list in terms of innovation and creativity.

I was impressed with the wide variety of multimedia that they used to help viewers visualize the story, especially since we all know how difficult and rare it is to get decent footage of the Taliban. The story is gut-wrenching, and victim David Rohde narrates the story in a matter-of-fact tone that adds an element of storytelling by providing the first-hand account.

I loved the animated maps depicting the route he took into Pakistan, and then the 3D animation at the end illustrating his escape. It’s amazing to think that a 3D artist can develop such an intimate and accurate scene based solely on Rohde’s memory.

My only qualm with the package is that I wanted to see the emotional return and reunion with his family. I assume that either this was not documented, or he did not feel comfortable publicizing pictures of his family, but I needed that closure in the story. When I didn’t get it in the video, I turned to the print story to see how they reacted and what happened next, but it ended talking about inaccurate media reports about his release. Of course, this is just a personal thing, but I still felt like the story wasn’t over. How has he changed? How has this affected his professional and personal life? What does he think about the Taliban after living with them for seven months?

What are your thoughts on the series? Are you fine with how they ended it, or are you like me and want more?

Other posts that might interest you:

• Post’s onBeing 2.0 and Times’ [LENS] blog launched
• El Mundo plans ahead with launch of 2016 Olympics package
• New York Times aggregates plethora of 2010 Winter Olympics multimedia coverage

© 29 October 2009 Innovative Interactivity (II).