Vearning from Video

February 5, 2013 at 5:20 pm · Filed under Video and tagged: close-up, journalism, learning, one-man band, sequencing, shot, student, video, videographer, videography

One guy thought it was a commercial. Another an American University promo. Yet another a prank. But nope. We were just trying to catch the essence of a question.

What can a question do to you? Why don’t we just answer with anything? Why the pondering, waiting and wrinkling of brows?

This project was fascinating. It could not have been more fun.

One of the initial reasons I became interested in journalism had a lot to do with people. Journalists see people. They photograph them. They talk to them. They understand them. Sometimes they laugh with them, comfort them and give them the voice that no other sought to give. Journalists interactions with people are powerful. Snippets of giving life to those who, more likely than not, otherwise don’t frequently step foot in front of the camera: These fragments of video, of interviewing, of answering, of interacting can emote some of the greatest of meanings.

All the sappiness aside, I think I would actually approach this video a lot differently with a second chance. I might change the question, for starters. This question was perhaps slightly too open-ended, providing some lack of repetition. We cut the video to make it repeat, which makes it funny. It could have been better had we had more subjects who reacted to the question the way those featured in these clips that make up the above video did.

Also, we made the mistake of giving some time to think about the question without rolling the camera, while we didn’t give others the same luxury. That meant that half of our subjects went through the daunting “Oh, gosh, I’m on camera, what on earth am I going to say?” thought process, with added fidgeting and lip-biting. The ones we didn’t make this nervous look overly prepared, as if they’re doing a cameo in a commercial. And that’s a disservice both to ourselves and to them because no one wants to watch that. It’s not interesting, different or meaningful.

Second, I would change the framing of a lot of the shots. I think a two-person shot is fine initially, but it needs to have a central focus, whether that happens through blurring a bit the other subject or “zooming” (on foot, not using the camera, of course) on the face of the one talking. Not only that, but next time, I will better utilize the rule of thirds.

My classmate and co-videographer and -editor, Yiyi Yang, manned the camera more so than did I for this video. I think we should have challenged ourselves more than that. I think we needed to switch roles and make the work 50-50. I flagged down unsuspecting interviewees, asked most of the questions to said subjects and thereafter interacted with them to keep their focus on myself and not the camera (which was not always successful). That, too, I would change. For this project, every subject could have looked either at the reporter or at the camera: either was fine, but both was not effective in the final cut of our video. As a result, we have differentiation in shots that shouldn’t be there. All in all, I think I needed to give Yang a chance to be the reporter and myself a chance to be the videographer. Often in the field we’re both, after all. Better late than never, I guess!

Looks aside, putting together this project about the Study Abroad Fair at American University was rewarding.

I started by picking something I knew I would enjoy. My classmate, Yiyi Yang, and I both have international interests. I, for one, would love to someday be a correspondent in a different country. Or perhaps I’ll just end up teaching English as a Second Language somewhere to add more living abroad experiences to my repertoire. She is from Beijing, and will be back there, or elsewhere, someday. Either way, we picked the Study Abroad Fair, which took place Jan. 24 in the School of International Service’s Atrium.

As you can see, close-ups were our cup of tea. The balloons, (prominently featured in this video) candy, faces of volunteers, staff and students strike me as the most compelling. If I could do this project again, I would get more shots akin to these.

For this project, we were equal in the way we shared the camera. We both had control of it for equal amounts of time. But no interviewing was involved with this assignment, so that, unfortunately, was Yang’s loss in this go-round (not in the next, and certainly not in assignments in the past, though :).

Another shot I would particularly strive to reproduce more in future video projects would be the sequencing shots — the ones in which first there is a shot of a person talking or doing something; and then the next shot is the person doing the same thing or the next inherent thing following that action. The shots get closer and closer until the camera is so close you’re left asking how. While putting these sequences together in the editing booth, I knew our audience would find them appealing. And Yang did most of the close-ups of faces, so, in this case, I want to do what she did!

Overall, it was valuable working as a team so I could understand different editing techniques, learn various new keyboard shortcuts and in general just have someone with whom I could reflect during our first-shooting experience within the context of Backpack Video Journalism. I think we could have afforded to alternate roles a bit more, challenging the other to get out of his or her comfort zone and delegating tasks other than those to which our thumbs are already accustomed. That said, bring it on one-man band!

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