Critiques Please

Hi,

I'm back with a few videos from earlier this year. I'm really trying to apply what I've learned from past critiques, though I still have a some wide to wide shots, sorry. I hope fewer than in past videos. I hope that you see some improvement.

I'm not shooting as much video in the past two months since we lost another still photographer. When I do shoot video, there's not much to work with visually.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

http://videos.cleveland.com/plain-dealer/2010/04/fighting_fat_fitness_in_school.html

http://videos.cleveland.com/plain-dealer/2010/01/lorains_main_street.html

http://videos.cleveland.com/plain-dealer/2010/02/radio_station_1073_changes_for.html

Thanks again.

SC
 
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Latin Lens

Well-known member
Fighting Fat...Lonnie, I feel we might have taken a step back in this one...it seems you had all the elements to make edits but you chose to shoot long shots and some had some jittery movement to them. It all seemed very unimaginative....it seems like you had a better oppurtunity to interview the kids while they were doing stuff as opposed to after the fact in the classroom...be johnny on the spot...when they finish doing something ask them a quick question...was that heavy or are you tired and there's a little nat bite to help you...do that four or five times at different excercises and that will help add flavor thorought the piece...utilize more tight shots....more ultra wides...find cutaways from the action to keep it interesting...in this instance let action move in then out of frame on various composition to help in the edit booth.
 

Latin Lens

Well-known member
107.3 Format change...that is a nice slice of life story...and you did well with it...I liked your approach to it...your cutaways were nice....but I think had you shorten some of your natbreaks and used sots instead it would have been alot better...too much dead air on a reflection piece might do more harm than good....nice variation in the intv with the guy...but think of the reaction to the radio studio.....some traffic shots or someone listening in the car...or just shoot the car radio and radio tower stuff would have helped out as well....but it was okay...definitely could have been better but you just need to think of the "reaction" shots instead of strictly focusing on the action and you'll do much better. Way to go Lonnie.
 

MMrozinski

Well-known member
Not a bad job with this story... There was some structure to it storytelling wise. I think the problem is that it lacked any punch. It really dragged a lot watching it. I was waiting for something to happen, a moment, an anything. When you do a story like this you really need to dig for some great moments using that wireless lav. You can't pull off a story that long with a bunch of mediocre SOT's. "Get the moment"

Something to stress after watching 2 of your stories is "tripod, tripod, tripod" use it, use it, use it. That shaky tight shot of the woman DJ's face is really shaky and sloppy.

Be careful with your cuts... at 2:19 you put a jump cut in. You had a tight shot of the guys face with SOT and then cut to a medium shot of him in b-roll. That really throws anyone off watching that. All the sudden I'm checking my TV to see if the audio is out of sync.

At the begging you had a lot of wide shots to wide shots. get tight on stuff

I kept seeing the same shot of the audio meter which was nice in some areas. Give me some variety or shorten the pkg.


Some things to focus on:

1. Use of tripod
2. Work on framing
3. Get the moment
4. Be concise with storytelling
5. More shot variety
 
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