Video #1: Let's Look At Some Vids!

Okay, so here's the video recap, posted in the order in which they were received. I ask that you please look at EACH video and read my comments for EACH video (not just your own!), so we can learn like we've learned from each other throughout this semester.

(These vids aren't long; just 1 to 2 minutes each. That means it should take you no more than a half-hour to watch all of 'em. Please do, because by looking at how others did the exact same assignment we did we can glean good ideas and best practices that we can later incorporate in our own work.)

Overall, I thought we did very, very well on this assignment, especially 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.

Like the first blog/tweet assignment, unless I emailed you saying otherwise then you got an automatic 4.0 equal to a practice story assignment on this as long as you met all the technical parameters of staying within 1 and 2 minutes, using two videotaped sources, including B-roll, etc. (Future assignments will be graded harder than this one, though.) 

Let's look for what worked and what didn't and what we could borrow for the next time and what we need to avoid doing again. Here we go:

Marlee G.: 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.

One thing to remember when shooting video with your phone: you will end up playing video on a horizontal screen, so shoot horizontally and not vertically. When we shoot vertically -- the camera phone facing up-t0-down, instead of sideways -- we end up getting those black "bookmarks" on either end of the image, which we don't want. 

Plus, we still need to follow journalistic standards, like identifying people by first and last names on captions, as required by AP style. A change in medium doesn't mean a change in rules.

Megan C.: 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, audio is always a challenge when shooting video; be sure to get microphones as close as possible to subjects, and have them answer questions slowly and clearly.

Plus, I don't care how still you think you can hold a camera, if you're holding it by hand you will get some shake, like we see here. Try to use a tripod or set the camera on a steady surface whenever and wherever you can.

Maria B.: Again, audio is tricky. Nice job of using caption slides to transition into new parts of interviews.

Kaylen E.: A few issues: audio is uneven, and we need full names on first attribution. But the biggest weakness is lack of B-roll.

The whole advantage of video story-telling is to show people what is being reported on; something we can't do as well in print for obvious reasons. With video, it's not enough to have speakers tell us what they're doing; we need to show the audience what they're doing, literally. Not having B-roll in video is equivalent to not having any supporting evidence for your lede in print. It is the factual foundation for everything we conclude. We don't just tell people the news; we show them the proof as well.

Plus, when we don't have B-roll, look at how long those interview segments seem, when we're essentially locked into the same talking-head shot for extended periods of time.

Nicole D.: One thing that I found redundant was 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.

Also, ideally we want B-roll while the person is still talking. That means letting sound run through a segment, but changing the shot while the sound is still going. Please see some of the other videos for examples. 

Emily C.: Did we have written permission to use the copyrighted song for background music? If not, congrats: you have committed your first federal crime, as noted by the Student Press Law Center's Web site:

—Can I use a recent pop song as background music for a feature story on our school TV station?

Not without permission or purchase of the appropriate license. While you could use a short clip of the song, for example, as part of a bona fide music review of the CD from which it comes, using the song solely as background music would not qualify as fair use. For more information, see the SPLC’s Guide to Music Licensing for Broadcasting and Webcasting.

It's not enough to give credit; you must have permission. 

Plus, we need to use B-roll not just before interview segments, but during as well. That way, we're showing the audience what the speaker is telling us about at the same time he or she is doing the telling. 

Jessica M.: The second interview uses B-roll in mid-interview; in the first, the interview plays out, and then we run B-roll. I think the former approach was better than the latter. Not only would it have showed what was being talked about while it was being talked about, it would also have shortened the video's length. And length is critical is broadcast; the shorter, the better in terms of keeping the audience engaged, and fitting into a time-restricted newscast. Saving a few seconds per story allows room for more stories in a newscast.

Maria M.: We're missing B-roll, and we can never miss B-roll. The whole advantage of video story-telling is to show people what is being reported on; something we can't do as well in print for obvious reasons. With video, it's not enough to have speakers tell us what they're doing; we need to show the audience what they're doing, literally, as we do in many of the previous videos.

Not having B-roll in video is equivalent to not having any supporting evidence for your lede in print. It is the factual foundation for everything we conclude. We don't just tell people the news; we show them the proof as well.

Terynee B.: 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.

We also needed a caption for the first and third speakers; like with a print story, we need attribution. And for the second speaker we could have dropped the caption after a few seconds.  

Tanisha E.: Again, one thing that I found redundant was 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.

Also, make sure the B-roll matches what is being said. The first interview subject talks about having fun and interning and taking summer classes, yet the B-roll is only of the last element. Utilizing home video from the second subject was a smart way to get B-roll of something that had already happened: a family vacation.

Tyler M.: We could drop the name caption after the first shots, because in subsequent shots the viewer has a visual cue: what the person looks like! So we can just do a name caption with the first shot, which ties together name and face, and then rely on just the face from that point forward.

Plus, we can never not have B-roll!!!

Auriel T.: Ideally, we want B-roll to run while person is still talking about whatever the B-roll is showing; we want it to be simultaneous. That's what we want to aim for in editing; pairing the audio of the interview with the B-roll, all in one. 

Tiago Z.: Here, we have B-roll properly used: amid an interview segment, while the person is talking. It packs a bunch of audio and visual information into a very short period of time.