Pre-Video Assignment: Roxanne Ready

Good example:

This is a depressing one! But I recently watched Vice's documentary about the white nationalists who organized the 2017 Charlottesville rally, and it's very good. However, please be warned that from timestamp 11:20-12:00, the video clearly shows the car plowing into the crowd. There are also shots of people injured, in shock and obviously terrorized lasting until 15:00.
https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/qvzn8p/vice-news-tonight-full-episode-charlottesville-race-and-terror

This is a powerful 22-minute documentary. The opening is intense, giving only the time and place as context as it leads into footage of the Friday night events. The juxtaposition of the nationalists and the counter-protesters was very well done. Throughout the piece, the events often speak for themselves, with just enough context given from the time/place/name stamps and surrounding interviews that the viewer can draw her own conclusions. The angles and framing are solid. I also didn't even notice, at first, the use of music throughout to create a connected narrative of building tension. The ending interview was a perfect bookend.

Bad (or at least not great) example:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/us/prisons-immigration-detention.html

First, the good about this one: This piece does a good job of centering a broad issue around a single person, making it easy for viewers to understand and relate to. The issue being discussed is newsworthy and important. The video cuts relate to what is being said, and the narration and quotes flow naturally from one part to the next. I especially liked the use of vintage footage. The producer did well with subtitles and with naming the interviewees through text. And I loved the shots near the end of Mr. Cortez-Diaz joyously talking about his release day.

That said, some of the visuals are quite dull. Shots of the building and of Cortez-Diaz walking around  a random part of the desert--which was never given any context--are neither engaging nor enlightening. Reporters are not generally allowed to wander around prisons taking B-Roll and were not present when the events Cortez-Diaz talked about took place, so I understand some of the challenges the reporters faced. However, the film does include decent prison B-roll in the latter half of the piece--some of which would have directly related to what the voice-over was discussing--so I wonder why the producer chose not to use any in the beginning.