Pre-production: My partner in crime (Anissa) were pretty stuck on ideas for a broadcast segment. We couldn't come up with a different yet clever idea that had not been discussed before. We both ended up on deciding to follow tradition and do a segment with football. Being seniors now, we thought we should focus on our Varisty team, just because it was most of the players last year and we wanted to make their voices known about what they thought about certain aspects of football. Anissa and I knew quite a few people on the football team so getting interviews set up wasn't a problem. I don't think our segment questions were 100% focused and direct but only circled our topic at hand, which I didn't like. There was one shot I envisioned with this piece as an opening for the segment. I wanted to have the camera at a low-angle worm height on the football field and the background would be a somewhat blurry (end zone) because the focus would be on the football right in front of the camera. A football player would kick the football (without hitting the camera) and the viewers' eyes would follow the footballs path toward the (end zone) while still staying in focus and the titles would slowly appear.
Production: The logical location for a football segment would be on a football field or wherever said football team practiced. I'm not as proud of my B-roll as I want to be. It's been quite a while since I've held a camera and keeping steady was pretty difficult. I know another option would have been to use a tripod but the tripod Anissa had checked out was a little battered and it didn't function as smoothly as we would have liked. I decided to go handheld and it was difficult because it was very windy so, being so light, I had to keep from being swayed. I did not get in any creative shots except a couple where the team was chanting their cheer and then broke apart and the part when the whole team gathered together and paid attention as Coach talked to them. I did keep in mind that I wanted a variety of shots so I changed up the angle I was standing or sqautting. I zoomed into a couple faces and sometimes the footwork that the football players did. I remember having this one close up of the football, while the players were practicing their plays, and then slowly zooming out to reveal the football players in their positions. The lighting was difficult for me to work with sometimes. It was getting close to sunset when I started interviewing players so I had to make sure they were properly lit. I didn't really play around with shallow focus because the constant movement made attempts difficult, but I wish I had incorporated at least a couple. The audio, because of the wind, made a very static and whistling noise in the background and we had to get rid of those parts where the audio wasn't clear.
Script: Our voice-over was pretty basic. We asked about future goals for the team as a whole, strengths and weaknesses, as well as possible outcomes for the season. The voice-over matches our B-roll pretty well. I wish Anissa and I had thought up of more clever openings and closings. But overall, the feeling we wanted to get across was that the football was ready to kick butt this season and that we should all show our support for them by going to the games and cheering.
Editing: Our B-roll matched our audio very well in our segment. Although there were some shots that were redundant. We just used a basic fade in and fade out transition for both audio and video to smoothly guide from one idea to another. We added titles at the beginning and the end of the segment as well as lower-third captions to be able to name our interviewees. There are no jumps or glitches between takes, that relieved me.
Overall: I liked the fact that the segment is finished. I wish I could've incorporated more creative shots and done a better job at editing. I guess I wasn't feeling very inspired with the topic of our segment so I didn't try as hard. I know that's not a good excuse because I should always try my best whenever faced with a project. The most important lesson I would take away from doing this segment is that I should always pre-plan better. I know I always work better and the end product is always better when I have a complete picture in my head of what I want it to be like.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Character In Time
Makeshift containers for lemonade sit on the porch beside her, forgotten. Her sister comes out from the house and reclines herself on a hammock. She motions toward one of the containers but is pointedly ignored..
She looks out across the yard and time seems to slow down as her mind flashes back to the one day burned into her memory.
Clothes were littering the floor. Shouts were echoing through the house. Her sister's quiet manner during the situation was scaring her.
Her eyes gain a distant look as she turns her head toward the road. She can barely make out two figures: a man in front of a car and herself looking up at him with tears streaming down her face.
It won't be forever; I'll come back soon. I promise.
She's then forcibly pulled away by her mother as her father climbs into the car. Crying out for him to stop but still held back by her mother, she remembers making her eyes latch onto the disappearing car, reluctant to release it.
Her sisters calls out her name and finally she hands over a small container of lemonade. All she can think of is
will he keep his promise?
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