http://www.eyeonthenews.wordpress.com

This is really good advice, thanks.

This is a good example of two different videos, the nondaily feature and the daily/news. The daily is a snippet of a story. It includes just enough information to have a story but doesn’t get too deep. You do your best but at the end of the day, you’ve got to edit and publish in a few hours.

The nondaily feature on the other hand is more about the heart, the details and the full story. At least showing that as best as you can in under 4 mins. For me features are more fun. “Last Call for Haircuts” tells a more complete story. It feels more rounded.

You can never have enough B-Roll and you can never have enough interviews to carry the narrative. “Helping Out” probably would have benefited from more voices but it would be longer and then turn into something else. Possibly more of a story about Sean. Right now I think it tells the story of both the old man and Sean and how their worlds intertwined for one day.

“Last Call for Haircuts” benefited from multiple voices. Think how boring it would be if you just had the twins talk. The story is the history of the twins, their shop and their interacts with their customers.

So keep this in mind when shooting / editing / watching…

What’s the story?

In class we talked about how interviewing two people is a bad idea, and I thought this was the main problem with video. It needed a third or a fourth character. Another homeowner would be good suggestion, but I think the video would have been much stronger had the filmmaker interviewed the boy’s mother. In the middle of the video, the boy tells us about his mother wanting him and his sister to do an hour of community service a week, so I think it would have been nice to hear from her because she probably is the person who instilled the caring aspect of her son’s character.

I think the lesson for me, and anyone who wants to take something away from this video, is that framing your shots keeps the viewer interested when maybe there’s only a “boring” story to tell. It is hard to remember to shoot video like a photographer, not like a home video. Get on the ground. Get dirty. Get wet from snow. Taking the effort will show in the end.

Thanks for the feedback and let me know if I can ever return the favor.

Brian

I agree with your comment that there could have been more photos showing Abby’s excitement about bowling. I tried to capture some more emotion about her game, but those weren’t my best pics. Hopefully, I’ll keep getting better at the photography thing and then I’ll have more options for photos in future projects.

I also agree that the project should have focused more on the campus life aspect of bowling. To me, this goes back to what Ira Glass said about finding good stories – it takes a lot of time. If I had the project to do over again, I think I could have picked a person with more involvement with other students in her bowling.

I think I’ll also get better at picking the audio I use for my soundslides – audio that is more varied in the topics discussed, for example. I did get info about other topics in the interview, but I felt the comments from Abby that I included talked most about her experience at the Reitz Union. I guess I focused too much on just one aspect of the bowlign, though, and should have answered some other questions as well.

Laura

Laura