Blogging 1: Comparing Videos February 14, 2008

For this assignment I decided to compare two videos from The Spokesman-Review.  

The first video I watched was Helping Others posted by Brian Immel. It is about 17-year-old Sean Hoffman, who decided to help shovel snow for others when his school was cancelled for one week because of the weather.  The video was only 1minute 50 seconds long, but the story had an obvious arc.  The story starts with Sean telling what he’s doing and why he decided to help.  Then when the older man Sean is helping was discussing his appreciation, he gets emotional when he  starts to talk about living alone.  I think this was the heart of the story.  The people who contacted Sean for help were probably older people who couldn’t shovel snow for themselves.  After the emotional tension, the story is light-hearted again when Sean talks about hepling as many people as he can before returning to school. 

When this video started, I thought it was going to be boring because there were only two people involved, and both men showed little emotion.  Although the shooting techniques were simple, different camera shots and angles added visual interest.  I liked how the camera didn’t move to follow Sean as he worked, but just captured him moving toward or away from the camera.  I thought the close-up shots of Sean’s snow-covered Nikes climbing up and down the ladder were interesting and showed how hard he was working for these strangers he wanted to help.  Also the shots of snow blasting in the air as Sean cleaned the roof and the car port were interesting because we couldn’t even see him but we knew he was there blowing the snow.

The next story I watched, Last Call for Haircuts, told the story of identical twin babers who were finally closing their shop after serving their community for 48 years.  I loved this video because it told a sentimental story.  It was inherently more interesting than the other story just because it was about the twin brothers’ connections, relationships and service over a span of years.  In this video there were also more people interviewed who talk about their memories at the barber shop and their emotions now that the shop was closing.  Although the video was almost 2 minutes and 50 seconds long, I didn’t get bored because I wanted to hear the stories they would tell or see what would happen next.

The start of this video, unlike the other video (where we just see Sean getting out of his car), was very interesting.  The moving stripes of the barber pole and the sound of hair clippers grabbed my attention.   There was a lot of movement and close up shots of the barbers’ equipment, faces and working hands.  I especially liked the close-up shot of the old-fashioned cash register, which showed how although many years passed some things at the barber shop never changed.  I think this told a story because in the beginning we see the twins talking about when they first opened the shop and why they are deciding to close it.  Then the sadness, laughter and nostalgia of the customers and the barbers are the tension that takes us to the story’s arc.  I think the hand shake at the end of the video was the resolution showing that the barbers and customers were accepting the end.  I noticed some shots in this video were a little longer, and I think it was to capture the emotions of the men as they talked with customers.  In both videos the emotional shots were a little longer than the others.  I also saw more camera movement in this video than in the first one.  I think the zooming in some places was appropriate when it was used to emphasize the emotion.