Cheap Valentine's Day

Latin Lens

Latin Lens

Well-known member
First thing I noticed was a theme thoughout the pkg.....watch the soundbite to b-roll jumcut....a tight shot of the action would have done the trick.

This story could have been fun but was rather boring....it needed faster pacing...and you needed to have fun with it....not attack it so much as a news story...you gotta learn to see the potential and do different types of shooting to give it that fun feel.

The opening stand up would have been much better if the reporter was walking towards camera and entered the store....then you could have built a quick nat montage to get the story started...set the pace and follow it thru.

I liked the concept of the story...choclate, dinner, then after dinner....so you could have gotten some transitions to get you from one place to the other...and again it comes back to pacing becuase they could have been some kind of natural wipe or quick nat edits....hopefully you're getting to see the idea.

Stories have alot to do with you and the team approach...talk with your reporter and build the concept BEFORE shooting, that way you are both on the same page and working together to get the best story.
 
C

Cletus918

Active member
Thanks for the input!

There were a couple things I should have mentioned earlier... I found out we had about an hour to shoot the first two parts because of a live shot... The dancing part was done in approximately 20 minutes because I was already sandwiched between 2 other shoots and didn't have much time...

The other killer was that the story was shot Thursday, but my reporter was off on Friday and it was being held until then. She took her time editing Thursday night, but also tried to hurry the process a little.

She and I have a pretty good working relationship. We talk about stories and bounce ideas off of each other without feeling like idiots if an something sounds tacky. But we are both very early in our careers, and sometimes we need to be told when something doesn't look quite right or is a little drab (which is something our ND won't do).

I appreciate your input.
 
Latin Lens

Latin Lens

Well-known member
I will say and I forgot to mention this in my first post was I liked the interview at the dance studio....the way the dancers feet moved in the foreground was cool...it might be distracting to some but I liked it.

Also...find the subject of your piece when you are shooting b-roll....for instance "love" is your subject here....look for it and play off it....with the dancers it should have been tight shots of the holding of hands...at the pizza place its the love of their craft, the making of pizza...develop the photog eye and your stories will look drastically different in a few years.
 
C

Cletus918

Active member
Okay, I understand what you're saying now...

I really do appreciate the critique. I use this site an awful lot try and learn. Maybe I'll learn even more if I post more stories?

Thanks again!
 
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