Pizza Eating Contest

Great opening shot. Nice clean shots...but too many wide shots in a row. And too too chronological. There is no excitement after that first shot.

Two shot of the interviews too wide...wide shots should be used to establish. In an interview it give the sense of not being "into" the story...we are standing back/not participating.

Even the start of the contest was too far back...would be okay to have a brief WS but then get that camera into the pizza and their faces. While I'm a big proponent of tripods, sometimes you need to move...go with the flow of the story. This seemed to be shot from one perspective.

This obviously is not a news story (a promotion for the pizza restaurant) and it would have much more impact if you cut in in half or more. Lose the music...it really isn't there/kind of drifts in and out. Go for real close-ups so we can feel the hot tomatoes and dripping cheese. Get the faces...going gung ho at first and then eventually perhaps apprehensive as the contestants fill up. Your cutaways of audience should be more intense...the little boy was almost reacting/the girl with camera was not.
 
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So I hope you can shed some light as to what this story was for. It seems you might be a news photog but I think Cyndy is right that I don't think this was for an actual news broadcast...more promo report for someone. If you are a news photog I sense that you might be very inexperienced because there was little structure (thought) in getting us from point A to point B for this particular "story". There are too many jumpcuts or editing mistakes. You got cutaways but they are used in random areas and they hardly had any effect or purpose for your "story". You failed to utilize the entire space of your surroundings to get variety in your shooting thus helping you in the edit bay. So you need to put some thinking into how you plan on getting the viewer from the begining to the end most effectively. You need better cutaways as to context of whats going on. You need variety of shots and angles so its pleasing to the eye. Your focus needs to be centered on the action but you need peripheral shooting/intvs to interject to keep the story entertaining...more from people watching and their reaction(s). So lots need to be worked on to really get some high marks.
 
I definitely think moving around would've helped you. More crowd shots of people saying go go go go!!! Maybe more depth from the characters since you definitely had them... (The two guys and the pizza)...

Finally, be glad you get such a shooting opportunity. It's head and shoulders above a wreck, ribbon cutting, or city council meeting.

As LL would say "Keep Plugging Away!"
 
As gross as watching people stuff their faces can be this "story" could've really used it. I'm not trying to be harsh but I was BORED. I wanted to hear people cheering and see tight shots of the two guys shoving pizza in their mouths sauce on their face, chugging water to get it down etc. I wanted this to be super fast, fast cuts nats and the like. I've never even attempting to eat a regular pizza by myself and could only imagine how hectic it would be to eat a 30" with someone else....SHOW ME THAT
 
photoguy603 said:
As gross as watching people stuff their faces can be this "story" could've really used it. I'm not trying to be harsh but I was BORED. I wanted to hear people cheering and see tight shots of the two guys shoving pizza in their mouths sauce on their face, chugging water to get it down etc. I wanted this to be super fast, fast cuts nats and the like. I've never even attempting to eat a regular pizza by myself and could only imagine how hectic it would be to eat a 30" with someone else....SHOW ME THAT
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Well, I too have same feeling as yours. I was also getting bored and I was there only to see the art of eating pizza because it's a big task for me to eat the Pizza and always feel awkward while eating it.
 
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