Okay, so here's a recap of some of the videos from a past semester's first assignment, which was for a summer class and sought to find out what people were doing that summer. Overall, I thought they did very, very well on this assignment, espcially considering it was a first-time video in this class. Lots of good B-roll, good story flows, ect. Certainly some things that can be tweaked, but that's to be expected.
Let's look for what worked and what didn't and what you could borrow. Here we go:
Julie: This one is a lot of fun. Notice the home-made graphics, which help tell the story textually, but in a visual manner. More good B-roll ideas here for an otherwise hard-to-illustrate story, by showing screen grabs of weather forecasts. Other B-roll ideas could have come from getting generic video of people doing summer activities: hanging out at a pool or the beach, people jogging and sweating, ect. That's B-roll any of us can shoot, and at any time.
Aaron: Want to see an example of lots of varied B-roll? This video got a bunch. See if you can get some ideas on how a simple topic can have varied B-roll, showing all aspects of something routine.
Kristen: More good use of B-roll, with the B-roll matching what the person is talking about at that particular moment. We want to be sure to match the sound to the visual when mating B-roll to audio.
Also, again we had redundancy in having a caption naming the speaker, and the speaker saying their own name. Ideally, just let the caption do the identifying, and save air time for the substance of what the person is actually talking about.
Daniella: This vid used still photos as B-roll, which is totally acceptable. Note how she fades in and out of the still images, to create a sense of movement within the video. Nice job.
But we're missing captions to tell us who we're talking to -- just like attribution in a written story -- and the vid is well short of the 1-minute minimum. We could have filled more time in a meaningful way by extending the interview segments.
Robert: We're missing a title slide, but there's other things executed well here. Note the captions identifying the speaker; it helps with attribution without the speaker having to name himself and waste air time doing so. And this is how B-roll is best used: to roll in the middle of the interview, while the interview is still going on. But make sure that the B-roll matches what the interview subject is talking about at that moment. In the second interview, the speaker is talking about out-of-state trips and the B-roll was of a campus building. Better B-roll would have been something representative of out-of-state vacationing.
Khadija: Here, we are heavy on the use of a narrator to help move the story along, and that's fine. Whether you use narration or not depends on which ways are best to tell a particular story. Like in print, we pick presentation style not based on our preferences, but by what better and best tells the given story. Also, the first interview segment better uses B-roll, with the B-roll being specific to exactly what the speaker is talking about at the moment.
Speaking of speakers, not the audio is uneven. I'm not gonna ding you for that, because you're working with pretty basic equipment. But it's something we need to be aware of as we get experience and better resources; bad audio can make great video irrelevant. Let's make sure we get mics as close as we can to our subjects, and get clear audio.
Danielle: Nice array of interviews, but we sorely needed B-roll to show the actions of what people were talking about, and to break up those long interview segments. Also, like with print attribution, on first attribution in captions we need first AND last names.
Brittany: Again, we need B-roll. In a video format that emphasizes activity and action, it's not enough to have people telling us what they're doing; we need to see what they are doing, as they are doing it.
In the second of two interviews, the image is upside-down. Did I ding you for that? Not on this first one. I'm letting go a lot of technical problems just on this first one so you can get used to shooting and editing and the problems that can ensue, and at the same time allow you to get the hang of technical aspects like B-roll and captioning and such, while giving all of us some things to look at, build off of, emulate and/or avoid in the future.
Let's look for what worked and what didn't and what you could borrow. Here we go:
Julie: This one is a lot of fun. Notice the home-made graphics, which help tell the story textually, but in a visual manner. More good B-roll ideas here for an otherwise hard-to-illustrate story, by showing screen grabs of weather forecasts. Other B-roll ideas could have come from getting generic video of people doing summer activities: hanging out at a pool or the beach, people jogging and sweating, ect. That's B-roll any of us can shoot, and at any time.
Aaron: Want to see an example of lots of varied B-roll? This video got a bunch. See if you can get some ideas on how a simple topic can have varied B-roll, showing all aspects of something routine.
Kristen: More good use of B-roll, with the B-roll matching what the person is talking about at that particular moment. We want to be sure to match the sound to the visual when mating B-roll to audio.
Also, again we had redundancy in having a caption naming the speaker, and the speaker saying their own name. Ideally, just let the caption do the identifying, and save air time for the substance of what the person is actually talking about.
Daniella: This vid used still photos as B-roll, which is totally acceptable. Note how she fades in and out of the still images, to create a sense of movement within the video. Nice job.
But we're missing captions to tell us who we're talking to -- just like attribution in a written story -- and the vid is well short of the 1-minute minimum. We could have filled more time in a meaningful way by extending the interview segments.
Robert: We're missing a title slide, but there's other things executed well here. Note the captions identifying the speaker; it helps with attribution without the speaker having to name himself and waste air time doing so. And this is how B-roll is best used: to roll in the middle of the interview, while the interview is still going on. But make sure that the B-roll matches what the interview subject is talking about at that moment. In the second interview, the speaker is talking about out-of-state trips and the B-roll was of a campus building. Better B-roll would have been something representative of out-of-state vacationing.
Khadija: Here, we are heavy on the use of a narrator to help move the story along, and that's fine. Whether you use narration or not depends on which ways are best to tell a particular story. Like in print, we pick presentation style not based on our preferences, but by what better and best tells the given story. Also, the first interview segment better uses B-roll, with the B-roll being specific to exactly what the speaker is talking about at the moment.
Speaking of speakers, not the audio is uneven. I'm not gonna ding you for that, because you're working with pretty basic equipment. But it's something we need to be aware of as we get experience and better resources; bad audio can make great video irrelevant. Let's make sure we get mics as close as we can to our subjects, and get clear audio.
Danielle: Nice array of interviews, but we sorely needed B-roll to show the actions of what people were talking about, and to break up those long interview segments. Also, like with print attribution, on first attribution in captions we need first AND last names.
Brittany: Again, we need B-roll. In a video format that emphasizes activity and action, it's not enough to have people telling us what they're doing; we need to see what they are doing, as they are doing it.
In the second of two interviews, the image is upside-down. Did I ding you for that? Not on this first one. I'm letting go a lot of technical problems just on this first one so you can get used to shooting and editing and the problems that can ensue, and at the same time allow you to get the hang of technical aspects like B-roll and captioning and such, while giving all of us some things to look at, build off of, emulate and/or avoid in the future.
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