Pre-Video Assignment, Haynes

NPR- Harvesting Lunch with a Master Forager (Good Video)

This video follows a professional forager through the woods, as he collects and describes the various plants he eats. The audio and the video are very clear, with descriptions about what he's eating and how to eat them. Everything he's describing is matched with a visual that showcases it. The order makes sense: first go into the woods, describe everything, bring it back home, cook eat and eat it. There were different shots incorporated (wide shots, medium and close-up), and the graphics made the video more visually interesting.

City of Rockville- Canned Food Drive (Bad Video)

This video is from a local news station covering a canned food drive for Christmas. From the very start, the writing for narration isn't strong, and doesn't add anything more to the video than what people could have covered themselves through interviews. The interview set-up was also a little too wide, and audio was slightly quieter than the narration. There were also short, unnecessary cuts of different angles for something as simple as a donation box, which definitely wouldn't require more than two cuts. In addition, there are points where the bells from the music are loud and distract from the audio. Lastly, the camera was shaky and there were more pans than still-shots.

Pre-Video Assignment, Dalsheim

Good Video: http://mj.unc.edu/student-multimedia-projects (Within Reach)

This project really allowed the people involved to tell story. The lighting and sound was always good and used use of time passing at the end and let the viewer continue to follow the story if the boy was getting arms. It kept you engaged with good visuals and compelling imagery.

Bad Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrF9-DpV7zk

The sound quality is good but it took me a second to figure out what the questions were with the interviews. There sentences were cut off halfway through and the transitions were a bit cheesy.

Pre-Video Assignment, Trager

Good:

http://mj.unc.edu/student-multimedia-projects (Feeding Dreams)

This project uses the characters’ voices to tell their story. The story flows nicely without the student having to narrate anything in between the interviews, which I like a lot. I think it’s impressive that the student was able to create a cohesive story just by the questions he or she asked. I also like how the project juxtaposes the children’s outlook on their life against the mother’s perspective on the food stamp issue. The shots of the children playing in the park or in their house really illuminates how naive they are to the problem. Finally, I think the project was well shot and the music added a nice touch.

Bad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=62&v=_-9WcMZcDIA

I think this project could have been done better. It is much less professional than the “good” project I selected. First of all, there are a lot of blurry shots that make the video hard to watch. It opens with footage from a car’s point of view, but it’s very unsteady, which is an immediate turn off. There are multiple times during this project that the video isn’t clear. The audio is also uneven. Some of it is really hot and some of it sounds scratchy; at certain points it’s actually hard to understand what’s being said. On a different note, this video seems to be edited with iMovie, as can be seen from the black screens with the white words. There are a couple of points in the project where I think instead of writing out these words, the student could have found more file footage of the team playing. I think almost any footage would have been better than the words. Similarly, some of the graphics are a little immature and could have been formatted better.

Pre-video assignment, Hester

Casey Neistat is a filmmaker and Youtuber. This video of him during the big storm on the east coast is a good example because he tells a good story. For more technical elements, I like the transitions and how he moves through each frame. For example cars driving pass one by one, the frame is still, and then switches to him snowboarding behind a car.

I think this is bad because the color is distracting, and the music is too loud which makes the audio from the interviews hard to hear. In terms of framing, I think the subjects needs more headspace. But, I do like the subjects are slightly off center and not directly in the middle of the camera. However, they are either looking directly into the camera or upwards at the cameraperson. Instead he could've repositioned himself for the subject.

Pre-Video Assignment Newton

Dancing King-Greg David from Brittany Waters on Vimeo.

This is the video that I selected as a bad video project. She violated the rule of thirds during her interviews with the dancer, there was very little variety in her camera shots, and she also had an audio issue in the second half of the video, where the audio sounded fuzzy.


Scratching an Itch from Eric Garment on Vimeo.

I chose this video as my better video. I felt that Garment used a nice variety of camera shots that were also relevant to the story. They were not awkward, and it did not feel like they were simply there for variety. He also told a good story with this video, something many of the other students did not do.