Slug & Lede

I thought that “Last Call for Haircuts” was an overall good, nostalgic video depicting the last days of a barber shop ran by twin brothers. The video had good interviews with the shop’s “regulars” and had some pretty good shots. However, there were a few shots that did not work as well into the rest of the video.
I thought the interviews were the best aspect of the video. They added a lot of details about the shop and lent credibility to the video. The interviews with the customers give the video a nostalgic feel, and really allow the viewers to see how long the shop had been around. It almost gives it a sense of closure. One example was one of the older male customers who said he had been coming to the barber shop since 1959 and how it was going to be hard to find someone as good as “the twins.” It was effective for them to use a lot of the older customers who had been coming since the shop opened to evoke the sense of nostalgia and tradition of the shop’s last days.
Another effective interview was the one with the kid and his dad. I thought this one worked well because it presented a contrast with the interviews with the older men and stood out from the others. Although the subject of the interview was younger, I thought it evoked the sense of tradition just as well as the interviews with the older men, as if he was beginning his tradition.
The video also had some effective shots throughout the video. Some of the close-ups worked well, especially those during the haircuts. I thought these were effective in showing the process and allowing the viewer to see a typical day for the barbers. The shots of the tools used were also effective in the same way.
Although there were some good close ups, some of them felt random and as if they did not really add anything to the video. I could see how some of the close ups of around the shop would be used to enable the viewer to get a feel for the shop and allow them to visualize it in its entirety. Even though that is a good idea, I felt as if it did not really work. There was one shot in particular I felt that really did not work that was of the front of the store. There was a car driving by in the middle of the shot and the front of the store was not framed very well.
Overall, I thought “Last Call for Haircuts” was a generally good video. It portrayed the emotions it intended to very well through the use of the interviews. Although some of the shots could have been done a little better, it was a well-prepared video for the most part.