Abused horse gets new home

X

xtender

Member
hey guys....so this was supposed to be a follow up vosot....A man rescues an abused horse and our story helps him find a home for said horse...he calls me up and tells me he has a family on the way...great!...i run out to the ranch and i get to speak with this family, and what they tell me, turns a vosot into a pretty decent pkg...on top of that a cute girl shows up, with the hopes of rescuing this horse....the rancher feels so bad that he has already promised this horse to another family, that he decides to give her a mini horse....which in all of her excitement she loads this mini horse into her lil chevy corsica!....

surprisingly there wasnt alot of nat sound opportunities...i was hoping for horse and goat nats...but didnt get what i was after..but all in all...i dont hate this piece...what do you guys think?

slug: Blind Horse Finds Home
http://www.krgv.com/mediacenter/local.aspx?videoid=177149@krgv.web.entriq.net
 
Latin Lens

Latin Lens

Well-known member
What you had here was quite a unique situation...a lot of great elements coming together fortunately or unfortunately (depending on your perspective) very close to together....so you had to be "ready". You needed to think fast and take control but I saw very little of that. Maybe you got nervous because the dissolves really show it in the editing...or there was too much literal writing to video. One thing young shooters do is take reporter track literally. "So the calls started coming in"...what does this line mean to you? I ask because that section was an editing nightmare...Its too literal to actually show him on the phone and you're using dissolves to "solve" the problem you knew you were in...but there's a better way. You don't actually have to show him on the phone, that's one thing or you can shoot the phone when he puts it down...in his pocket if its sticking out...whatever...because you not only have to think of the sequence before but also after that line...so you need to find a better way to get shots that represent the concept of what the reporter track is saying. I've had this disscussion so many times with my reporter. Unless its specifically said, "this house" or "this phone"...then your hands are tied...but if not then I explain how I take into account before and after but try and have every shot make sense visually...and then she gets it and understands which helps her write better or change the line to get what we both want. All the dissolves tell me that you got overwhelmed and stopped thinking and you lost your focus. Unless you know you can do it...why have all the b-roll of the young lady with the horse and then have the intv wide of her with the horse? You're inviting jumpcut galore there...unless you are "interviewing" here while she meets the horse to get your nat pops to add the flavor...but you really needed to be thinking way down the line about how it would be to do that and thats a very advanced skill. This is a case of too much at once, and you tried but it wasn't very effective. There was no imagination in any of this which is why I feel you got overwhelmed or lost focus...too many rookie mistakes which made this potentially great story below average. I've seen better from you which is why I don't understand what happened here. But thats why we do this job...we love telling stories and its another challenge tomorrow. Keep trying...this all sounds rough but as you progress you'll understand it better and better.
 
cameragod

cameragod

Well-known member
You used more dissolves in one story than I have in over 20 years.
Why do we see your camera shadow? It should never happen.
 
X

xtender

Member
ouch....but this is what i love about THIS forum....I went out to this farm 3 times that day...the family coming out to get the abused horse was running late...so I lost my original reporter...I wound up being the one man band...

I'm not a fan of dissolves at all...but if i use one dissolve i may as well use it all the way through..plus my ND loves dissolves on soft stories.

i was kinda proud of this piece until you two came along :)
but you guys are totally right...

when i interviewed the girl w the mini horse...she had no idea how she was going to get him home...so i shot that wide...thinking that i wouldnt have any b roll of them loading him up...however, they decided to put him in the car...
 
cameragod

cameragod

Well-known member
If your station has a "look" or the ND "loves" shiny things then I guess you have to go with that. But what you can do is try to find ways to make it suck less. I admit I've never tried to make dissolves work for a whole story... I think if you limit them to a few intentional transitions and not as a get out of jail free card then they will work better and the ND will still be happy.
 
cameragod

cameragod

Well-known member
Look at the wipe at about 53 sec into this story. Its just one effect but it is stronger because its the only one and it feels right.

[b-rollTV]3673[/b-rollTV]
 
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