Snow Fall is quite an impressing piece. From beginning to end, John Branch successfully captures his readers and takes them on a trip to the Cascades. The visual imagery he uses complements the story well to the point where the story itself remains in the visual imagination of his readers. While being very informative, Branch manages to exploit emotions as the story progressed. From the personal accounts of professional skiers, to the calculated aerial view of their race down for survival, Snow Fall kept the audience in full understanding for its duration.

Snow Fall uses multimedia to lead the story, beckoning readers to delve deeper into it. Information is repeated in videos and pictures that not only display numbers and pictures to clarify understanding, but also brings out how important the information is for the story. This can especially be seen in “Descent Begins.” Some media are interviews with firsthand contact of the deadly occasions of the Cascades while others portray the deadly beauty of the heights of the mountains. The way Snow Fall connects the story with the audience is very vivid, creating a tireless yet impactful read.

Advantage is taken by the specific placement of media. Images and videos are placed appropriately in conjunction with the passages. Where it needs to be climatic, the clips are there to support. For example, when one part of the story concludes, there is usually a moving image with captions that seems to lure the audience into clicking onto the “NEXT” button, an invitation to find out more.

The formatting of the story can be used for many others that have enough background to promote great visualization. It takes research, precise detailing, and creativity to create a piece like this. This feature could have been much more simple, less emotional, less important, but the way it was made created something more.