This PKG IS For Critique...

NewsMan

Well-known member
Like I said last week... I don't normally post my news work, but after last week's response, I have no choice.

Last week's choice was a posting because it was put on my site and I liked the emotion of the piece. I should've known (as Freedie says) that it would get critiqued in some form. Unfortunately, the critiquers took a look at that one piece and made some comments that are synonymous with "rookie" and "has no idea what he's doing".

With that said, I decided to post something I would've entered in a contest... if I participated in such thangs. This piece, while not perfect, is a good example of my skill level.

Sorry... this is the last piece I'll post, I just wanted to level the perspective a little bit.

DT

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=9h6BEM6mjGM

 
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krazycamera

Well-known member
Nice!

I REALLY liked that.

No voice over, no need for ego/face time, and the people lead the package, I'm a big fan of that.

Initially I was confused what they were qued for, and the big dude with the beard got me thinking it was Ozzfest tickets!!

I often think shooting through car windows works as needs must - the lighting is passable - if you can, try to get invited into the front passenger seat, or something a little different.

Nice work - looks like you had a lot of foot work to get it all!
 

cameradog

Well-known member
Just off the top of my head:

The subject matter of this piece was fairly entertaining, but the first thing I noticed was that it was full of temporal jump cuts like the other one. The nat break of the country music didn't seem to have much to do with the story. And when you showed the woman being pushed into the gas station, it was a mistake in having her talking over herself when she was obviously talking to the camera in that shot.

Like the other one, this was adequate, but nothing special. I don't understand why you think this one somehow makes a difference in the other one you posted.
 

HokiePhotog

Well-known member
Good example of a NATS piece that really keeps the viewer glued to the screen... Good job not giving up what the line was for until about 1/2 way through the piece... by then I was hooked on the story and I wanted to watch the rest...

Too many times a reporter will just blow it with the first line... "Folks from miles around lined up for the chance to get free gas..." THAT would have been just another boring gas story... you made it interesting, informative and very visual...

Not the most spectacular piece ever, but for a gas prices/gas giveaway piece, it was something different... Knowing that this was in the western part of the state (and having lived in that area for 8 years during/after college, the country music break made sense to me, as I'd assume it would to your viewers...
 

AB

Well-known member
I used to love nat packages and did many myself. As I get older I'm becoming less and less a fan of them.

This story was fine. The shot selection was good. Good editing, etc. And yes, it all made sense and the viewer can figure out it's people in line for cheap gas. But I think it needed some track to give it perspective.

Maybe "perspective" isn't the correct word. I guess I'm trying to say I've seen this type of story before. The problem for me were the sound bites.

Yes, they said everything you needed to make a story, but they were all bland. The bites that were supposed to add some fun or texture got mixed up with the "fact" SOTs that advanced the story. This is especially true when laying down a SOT followed by a nat break with the same person.

I think some track could have paced the overall story better.

Sure, some reporters could have butchered it. It's a good effort for getting feedback on a photography website, but as a regular viewer, it's not going to stand out.

I'm not trying to be harsh but you posted this looking for some sort of vindication.
 

cameradog

Well-known member
you made it interesting, informative and very visual...
I disagree. I don't think it was very informative at all. All I know after watching that piece is that a couple hundred people sat in line for free gas.

I don't know who was giving away the gas.

I don't know why the gas was being given away.

I don't know where this was happening.

I have only a vague idea of when. How early did they start lining up?

I don't know who the people in the yellow shirts were. Were they volunteers? Marketing people for some local company?

I don't even know why any of the people who sat in line were willing to do so. You might think that's obvious (free gas!), but it isn't. "My husband lost his job, and any little bit helps." Etc.

After watching this story, I really know very little about what was going on out there. Who, what, when, where and why? Those are the basics of journalism, and they're all missing from this "story." Even though it's a nat pack, I assume this was turned for air in a news program. Even nat packs should address the basic facts if they're going to air as news.

Further, the story was ostensibly about people waiting for free gas. We didn't get much of a sense of them waiting, in human terms. All we saw was a long line. We didn't see the woman flipping the channels on her radio (which might have actually motivated that country music nat break). We didn't see somebody reading the paper. We didn't see any of the frustrating stop and go that happens when the line finally starts moving. We didn't get a sense of how warm or cold it was out there, whether the people were comfortable or sweating their asses off.

There were two people in the story who said they had run out of gas or were on empty, but we never even see a shot of a gas gauge. The package SCREAMED for a shot of a gas gauge.

What really makes this piece mediocre isn't so much what's wrong in it, but what's missing from it.
 

NewsMan

Well-known member
Maybe the non-important information was in the tag and lead where it belongs. The country music was the natural sound playing at the gas station.

Bismark - Bedford Co.

When the boss ays, "Do a NAT PAK on people lining up for free gas", that's what I did. No reporter track assigned. Thanks for the input!
 

cameradog

Well-known member
Maybe the non-important information was in the tag and lead where it belongs.
The basic facts of the story aren't important? Are you serious?

You mentioned sending this to contests. A contest judge isn't going to see an intro and tag. A contest judge is going to expect a package to stand on its own. A package should be able to stand on its own. This one doesn't.

When the boss ays, "Do a NAT PAK on people lining up for free gas", that's what I did.
Do you take everything so literally? "Oh, the boss didn't TELL me to ask questions about basic facts, so I didn't. The boss didn't TELL me to be a journalist, so I won't."

No reporter track assigned.
If you think you need a reporter track to deliver the basic information of the story to your audience, you fail. In a nat pack, the interviews tell the story and relay the information. If your interviews didn't do that, you didn't ask the right questions. It wouldn't have been difficult at all to get somebody to tell you on camera the basic facts of what was going on there.

Thanks for the input!
Yes, I can see that you're really taking the constructive criticism to heart.
 

NewsMan

Well-known member
The basic facts of the story aren't important? Are you serious?

You mentioned sending this to contests. A contest judge isn't going to see an intro and tag. A contest judge is going to expect a package to stand on its own. A package should be able to stand on its own. This one doesn't.



Do you take everything so literally? "Oh, the boss didn't TELL me to ask questions about basic facts, so I didn't. The boss didn't TELL me to be a journalist, so I won't."



If you think you need a reporter track to deliver the basic information of the story to your audience, you fail. In a nat pack, the interviews tell the story and relay the information. If your interviews didn't do that, you didn't ask the right questions. It wouldn't have been difficult at all to get somebody to tell you on camera the basic facts of what was going on there.



Yes, I can see that you're really taking the constructive criticism to heart.
Hmmm... I can tell that if we drank in a bar together... we'd be a brawlin' in the parking lot before long.

There is nothing constructive about your condescending answers. I can only keep a smile on my face so long.

I come to this site to contribute, not to be slammed by every know-it-all, got-something-to-say jackass...

BTW - wtf is a "temporal jump cut"?
 

AB

Well-known member
I'm not always a big fan of Cameradog and sometimes his words come across harsh.

But you are the one who put this story out there looking for critique. In his first response, "dog" put out a lot of valid feedback. I get it that there was an anchor lead and tag, but I've always believed a package, nat package, whatever has to stand on its own.

That's one of the problems with running nat sound pieces, they have to been very well done or they fall flat on the air. It doesn't mean it's a piece of dog meat, but it has to be better than a normal reporter-tracked piece.

Every shot, SOT, nat transition has to count and lead the viewer like a narrator would.

I'm not trying to be nasty, but you were looking for feedback and you got some.
 

cameradog

Well-known member
BTW - wtf is a "temporal jump cut"?
Temporal jump cuts are jumps in time, for instance seeing someone at one time, then seeing him again in a different time with no transition. When you cut an interview of someone with b-roll of the same person, without any kind of buffer shot in between, that's a temporal jump cut. The guy giving out the numbers was jumping back and forth through time more than Scott Bakula.

It's not the worst error you can make, and often it's advantageous to break that rule if you have a good reason. But you showed a wanton disregard for the rules of editing. If you had shot sequences around what that guy was doing, you would have had plenty of places to go to avoid the problem. For example, why didn't we ever see a close-up shot of one of the number tickets? There was a perfect cutaway to avoid one of the jump cuts right there.

There is nothing constructive about your condescending answers.
It's plenty constructive if you'd pay attention and try to learn something. The problem is that you didn't post this story to get constructive criticism. You posted it because you were pissed off that the military story you posted in the other thread wasn't met with glowing praise, and you posted something you thought was better, still fishing for compliments. If you want praise, don't post a mediocre story under the guise of a "critique." Show it to your mom and dad instead.
 

smltm4nw

Active member
He isn't attacking you, in his own way he is trying to help. Don't post vids on this board and expect everyone to toot your horn. The best award winning piece I've done got torn to shreds when I put it up for a critique. Does it sting yes, can I use every piece of advice given to me, no. But I take what I can and learn.

Your story is all over the place. I didn't hate the shooting, but there was no focus to your story. I just didn't connect to anything in your story because you put in about 10 different very broad story lines. CD is right the basic who, what, where, when questions were non existant or vague at best. I'm sorry I'm sure your target audience understands the country music, but I don't know why you used that pop. At least reference where the music is coming from.
 

NewsMan

Well-known member
No Camera Dog... you believe I wasn't looking for constructive criticism, so you gave me smart-ass constructive criticism. I can be the nicest guy in the world until people start talking down to me and the like.

I never had asked for critiques until this week. It was a sincere request that was met by remarks filled with negative intent... as if, "How dare this guy ask for feedback on this crap".

While I get the jumpcut concern, I believe the audio transitions and other techniques I used avoided the jump cut issue. The only one that catches my eye is the old hillbilly at the beginning. The rest, I feel, are acceptable edits.

You are also wrong about me wishing for accolades. I could care less about accolades. That's why you've never seen my work here before and why I do not deal with contests. So forget that theory. I posted a second story to even out the incorrect assesement of my overall work. Plain and simple. As I explained before, the first post was created to drive people interested in military stuff to my site. Plain and simple. No fishy wierd stuff. Just sharing some of my experiences.

So SMLTM, you think he "isn't attacking" me? Read his posts. The sharp, arrogant responses reek of a tone that's nothing less than condescending. I mean seriously.

Then you say, "the story is all over the place...". Seriously, I start at the front move to the back and follow the last woman through the end. What are you talking about?

Folks, this is a 1:15 NAT PAK. The intro explained who, what, why and where. I simply put together a story that focused on the people in line, as instructed.

Critique me... that's fine, just don't sit there and parse my sentences and try to prove something to me like a lawyer playing courtroom games.

As AB says, "... he may come across harsh...". Oh really? Harsh isn't bad, I can take harsh, it's the belittling disrespect that gets my goat... especially from someone I have never met before in my life.
 

NEWSSHOOTER3

Well-known member
Gold

I enjoyed the fact that you kept a little "gold" hidden and unveiled it at just about the right time. This is sometimes hard to learn and even harder to implement.

While I agree with a few of the things said here, on some of the fundamentals, I enjoyed the piece. I believe that video essays are small "moments" that shouldn't require an extensive prologue. You took a "snapshot" of an activity and brought me there.

Don't take the things said here personally, but do take them into consideration, and don't give up...
 

NewsMan

Well-known member
In other words, you weren't really interested in honest feedback. You wanted someone to validate you.
In other words, the first pkg is nothing I would've wanted critiqued, unlike the second package.

You need to get better at this assuming thing, it's what sours the conversation. All you're interested in is parsing sentences to prove you're right... you win... woo hoo!
 

cadencefilm

Member
. . .

i'm in agreement with smltm4nw. . .

if you put your work out there for open critique, expect - at the LEAST - to get torn down as much as you get propped up.

take all comments here to heart, but i've learned the comments that really stick with you and help you turn the best stories are the one's that piss you off the most, like cameradog's.

those are the one's you'll remember next time you're shooting a natpkg, when you're standing there looking around wondering if you got everything you'll need in the edit booth.

shooting a natpkg is about completing (in context) sentences/phrases/questions a reporter's track would normally set up, with bites and nat sound you choose and sequence.

those of us that say we outright liked your piece. . . and for the most part, i did. . . i guarantee you won't remember anything but a warm fuzzy feeling when you think back to what we wrote next time you're out shooting a natpkg.

but cameradog's comment's? you'll remember those. . . and if for no other reason than you'll try to prove him wrong about your work. you'll keep his checklist in mind as you shoot an it'll make you a better photographer.
 

mkay

Active member
Great narrative! The reveal was really well executed. Bottom line is you told a story with awesome moments AND great transition sound. Here's what I liked:

1. Great character to start off the piece. The old dude set up the scenario that got me hooked.

2. Then intros a hilariously confused teen volunteer that reveals the crux of the story.

3. Way to follow the woman's sound to transition into the stranded lady. That really feels like journalism to me.

4. LOL money shot of stranded lady getting pushed to the gas station! Nice hustle!

Only crit is the ending shot. I would have liked to see a defining shot that summed up the piece instead of a shot that had me thinking there may be more. Overall, I thought it was top notch. Keep it up!
 
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