Than you all for the feedback. Far too often I get sort of full of myself and I appreciate being brought back down to earth... in a friendly, professional, thought-provoking kind of way.
A couple of things:
Constructively speaking I felt like there were far too many dissolves. That's more of a personal preference I have than a slant at the way you edited the piece; it still looked nice.
I agree... I sort of started and it was hard to stop. I think it also slowed the pace.
Overall, I think I would have liked the story more had you not used the special lens. What was your motivation for using it?
The lens on my camera in not very wide... using this ill fitting wide-eye greatly increase the width of view. It looks pretty good when down-converted to 4x3, so it's a compromise, overwhelmingly not a favorite among this group!
* The subject placement was a bit funky on the black lady, in front of the white crosses. I know what you were going for, but it kinda looked like she had crosses on her head?
Both of the women were mobility challenged, the one in purple was chair-bound, and right up beside her car. I sort of did what I could without making her feel uncomfortable.
I shot the area the mayor (white guy) and first black woman were sitting, without them in the shot, figuring I would dissolve them in "ghost-like", but when I could move the other woman, and when I tried it in the edit room, it ust didn't work.
* Also, (of personal interest) maybe a little more background would be cool, Rad. Were all those people just randomly out there as you drove by? Did you turn this the same day?
I shot this the evening of July 3rd, Belhaven is known for it's July 4th celebration and getting someone to meet me there was difficult. I got the people I could get there, for better or worse.
Belhaven is about 2-1/2 hours away, I figured I had the one shot at shooting this on the way back from the coast. As you can tell by the sun, I was fighting the clock while shooting.
lady in purple - did not like the framing
Disolves - too many
Wide angle lens - took away from the story
Opening shot - I liked it but you should have keept it up longer.
I think I'll print this out and put it on the outside of the tape cassette.
Was this a one day shoot or did you go back the next day for the interviews?
I shot this on the way back from the coast, after driving and shooting all day on other stories. One day shoot, in fact shot in just two hours, racing the sun as it was going down. I wrote and edited the thing a few days later.