The Last Jam Session

Woodchuck

Member
I just did this story the other day about a terminally ill kid who was given a surprise jam session with professional musicians. It was shot in two hours, and edited in one and a half. I do know the audio could have been cut better. In-house computer issues ate up some of my time and efforts.

Thoughts and suggestions!?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB5zJoBDOIs
 

Latin Lens

Well-known member
So every station is different but I think for the most part when I offer a critique its from the side of what would/could make this story better. What mistakes can/should be corrected. I'll start with the obvious...great story content was here. What a nice feel good story...but the execution was way off which didn't allow for the true emotion of this to come through. You had time to do because this wasn't a 1:15-1:20 piece...so I'm not sure if its lack of vision by the reporter or what but you had something. This needed better setup before the "suprise" came into play...how important is music to this kid...does he usually play alone...would he love to record a demo/record...thats the setup you needed to draw viewers in to get to know the characters...then you move to the reveal...and the end is the happiness that he got to fulfill a dream. You and your reporter control the story...takes on the journey...get us from a begining to an end. So learn to collaborate with your reporter(s) on better story structure. Remember its more effective to have some better lighting and framing when it comes to emotional type interviews for emotional type stories. It'll give your overall piece a much different feel all around. Try and pick better locations for interviews and when you couple that with framing and setting...it really starts to come together. Audio was way rough...use some long fades maybe even a low audio bed underneath the interviews would have been a nice tough so it not so dramatic a tansition from loud studio to quiet interview. Always have the final product in mind when shooting...maybe that could help with finding shots, nats, interview locations. Keeping that in mind will really start to get your brain and photog eye working for the best possible story.
 

Woodchuck

Member
Thanks Ozkar. Unfortunately, I was equally disappointed in this story. My biggest regret is not letting the nats and bites breathe. I agree. It could have been infinitely better.
 

qaism123

Member
hanks man, getting deliveries myself I knew sort of what was involved...but no idea how many houses/businesses they do in a day and how fast they do it. We caught up with the last 4 of the day....he did around 40 that day alone...
 

Necktie Boy

Well-known member
What is the story? It's one of those sweetheart stories that we all want to do. It went terrible wrong.

Where was the setup? I had to figure out who the story was about. It seems you had very little information about the subject. It was very confusing to me. What about the framing? What was with that?

If you only had time at the recording studio, my angle would have been why all those musicians showed up to cut a song with the dude. Have them tell say why...And the punch line would have been him coming in. A bit about how surprised and how wonderful it was to have these fellow musicians come together for him.

As Latin Lens said, team work. I used to pitch angles as I drove to the story. Bounce ideas out of the box.

The story never made the impact it should have made.
 

At the scene

Well-known member
Thanks Ozkar. Unfortunately, I was equally disappointed in this story. My biggest regret is not letting the nats and bites breathe. I agree. It could have been infinitely better.
Alex, tell us what you liked about the piece. You mention that you are "equally disappointed" and you have "regret" along with "could have been infinitely better"

I guess my question is why did you post for a critique when you already critiqued yourself. Somewhere inside you must have thought that this was a pretty good piece. Correct! If it wasn't then why post it.
 
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