Being on the brodcast team, our group was assigned to do a news feature video, kind of like our 1st and 2nd quarter projects. The duration had to be close to 2 minutes because when the main editor edits all the videos together, we want to make sure that they all fit in nicely and doesn't go over 10 minutes. Anyways, so how it works is that they are giving us one word, and that word was Success (for this practice), and we are supposed to make a video depending on what type of video we were to make (however most teams were creating a News feature except for PSA) that revolved or related to the word. The word was Success and we had to get our news story finished and give Leanna the files so she can edit and finish the final brodcasts' team video consisting of all the videos, all within 16 hours.
So we had to think of our idea first. We all have different definitions of success and what it means to us, leading to different story oppurtunities and ideas. However, we all could've had the same idea, which would be bad. So we gathered and had a discussion. All of the brodcast team, and including some PSA group members, helped us throw out some different ideas. Some suggested success as in beating an illness, like beating cancer, however none of us actually knew someone to do the story on. Honestly, that would have been a really good story and in depth, but we can't help the fact that none of us know anyone. Others suggested organizations; how they were unknown and then revolutionized over the past year. You know, Success can have endless possibilities, it just depends how you see it, what it means to you. We all kind of just stuck ideas out there and groups chose which one they wanted to do. The group I was in, with Lindsey and Ben, decided to do it on Puka Dogs. We found out that they opened at 10, so it would only be a couple of hours before we could actually call them. So we looked for another story, and found Popolani Gelato, but it opened at 11, so that would be our backup story. After we finished shooting the interview (I was the interviewer) and the b-roll we headed back and started to edit. The video was given to Leanna pretty late, at 9:00, which was bad because Leanna still had to edit everyone's video. At STN, we are going to need to work faster and get them to Leanna earlier.
I think next time it would be best if Ben and Lindsey were to be the editors, although everyone had a turn at it. They have more experience in editing and they're good at it, might as well them edit from the start then having to fix errors later. I know that I can trust them to do a good job, and they know what b-roll matches, and the really important sound bytes. We could use more b-roll and that's a good thing to keep in mind at STN, you can never have to much b-roll! We realized that we were short on b-roll during the editing process, so instead of voice overs we had to do standups. At first, Ben did the standups, but his voice was warped, so I had to do them. I had the hardest time remembering the lines! We were kind of in a hurry because Leanna needed the files and it was hard to get them to her because we just needed to insert the standups but I kept messing up! It was actually my first time doing standups and I found that it's more difficult having to memorize them (reading them off the paper), and look into the lens and still look content rather then just reading it off a piece of paper into a microphone. Like I said, we were rushing to get it finished, but I believe if I were to do the standups again, I could do better. We had a few minor errors, like how the lower third cut off my chin and with the interview; he's looking down (I'm so short), that we can fix at STN. Another thing is to get it to the main editors early! If they get the video early, it's better for them to start editing!
Overall, the practice was a success (was that a pun?) It was a long and tiring day for everyone and stress roamed the air. But in the end, we all saw that everyone did a nice job, so congrats! It was really interesting to see what other groups story were. I especially like the teacher who's definition of success was excellence, not perfection. The film team also did a great job, I really liked the short movie, I can tell a lot of thought was put into it, congrats to you guys to! We all have things to work on, and let's bring our best to STN!