Slug & Lede

This ESPN video piece by Jeremy Schapp documents the most recent MLB player, Los Angeles Dodgers left fielder Manny Ramirez, and the overall effects of doping and steroids in baseball.

The piece opens up with an introduction by a Sportscenter anchor which is, in my opinion, a good set up for Schapp’s piece.

Schapp uses a comparison to Cesar’s wife, saying no one (in baseball) is safe from steroid allegations with yesterday’s news about Ramirez’s failed drug test and with Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez coming forward about his steroid use.

What makes this piece even more interesting is when Schapp gives a position-by-position roster of MLB stars who have failed drug tests over the last five seasons.

Rwanda, by Victoria Holden is compelling video about a mother and son who travel back to their home after driven out by Genocide. More than half of his family had been killed, including his father. The piece shows and tells the young boy visiting where he was born and reiterating that Rwanda was genocide, not a war.

The strongest aspect of this piece is the emotion that is shown in their eyes and through their tone. The movement of the camera emphasizes emotion that the mother and son are expressing. There is one scene in the video where the mother is crying and the camera focuses to just her face and eyes. The movements made the audience focus on the amount of pain this event caused her. This emotion displayed the way it was, allows the audience to recognize the event in history and perhaps take action in Darfur most recently. 

 Another strong aspect of this piece was the sequence of events. All the way from packing to leave for Rwanda, having family time while over there and then ending with a contribution to his father. This sequence of events introduces different emotions at appropriate times.

Additionally, the summary available under the video is very beneficial. It gives you a chance to get the point of the story and some background whenever you have time to view it. This caption allows one to pay attention to the video and have some understanding of the genocide they are referring to at the same time. The end gives good closure to his father’s death and the sons view on genocide.

A weak point of this video would be the use of wasted time. The video is quite long, which would not be an issue because it is attention grabbing; however there are scenes where I lose attention because these scenes do not follow the theme. For example, there is a part where the young boy explains what his family eats. This may tie into the aftermath of the genocide but it is unnecessary to discuss in this piece. 

 Another weak aspect of the video was tone of the young boy. For me this was boring, however I understand that his tone reflects the subject he is discussing. I suggest spicing the sound up in the video by adding music of the culture or other noises reflecting the subject. The boys voice is necessary but the natural sound is too similar throughout the piece.

In summary, the video was a successful piece. The few things that were weak are minor. The subject of genocide is very fragile and I think it is hard to construct a piece on it. Video was a perfect media for this interview and subject. Showing travel through video worked well. Also because emotion is key to explaining and promoting awareness of genocide, it was important to use video as the media to show people. Words do not address this audience as strongly as visuals. The audio and visuals together worked hand in hand to show the audience what genocide did to this family and many others.

Sin City Shooters, a video by the Las Vegas Sun’s Evelio Contreras, documents the bimonthly meetings of a Vegas-based pistol club.

The video opens with the pop of small gunfire, a noise that becomes the soundtrack of the piece as it moves to interview several club members.  The interviews are intriguing–one older woman in particular seems to be certifiably insane–and benefit from steady camera work.  The same cannot be said about some of the other shots; the camera was clearly not on a tripod, and its movement (which is more excessive than normal tilt or pan shots) often becomes distracting.

The shots are edited quite well, and the sequence flows from one shot to the next.  Interview subjects are identified by labels on the bottom of the screen, a touch that is more a courtesy than anything; I found myself not really paying attention to names, marveling instead at the sheer lunacy of the group.

Despite the fact that some of the camerawork seemed to have been conducted by an epilectic 4-year-old, Sin City Shooters is a successful video.  Short and to the point, its depiction of gun-crazy Nevadans shows a side of the city that we rarely see.

Cats need homes is a video piece done by Pawel Dwulit of The Star.  The video is about Frank Currell, a man that owned over 80 cats. Currell had to part with  most of them because his wife passed away and he now has cancer and he is unable to take care of them.

A strong strength of this piece is the story itself.  Having over 80 cats is quite interesting.  However, the shaky camera was very distracting.  It was hard to pay attention.  Another strength was the changing of the camera angles to show how many and what kind of cats there were in his home.  It was nice to see those low angles to get perspective of a cat. It was nice to see a photo of his wife and a jump to his sons when they were mentioned in the story as well.

Even though I did enjoy the short length of the video, there are a lot of questions unanswered in this piece that really could have added some more depth.  I want to know where and what size of a place he lives in.  I would have loved to see a wide establishing shot.  That wider shot would have a lot more impact on the viewer.  More interaction of him with the cats would have been great, especially from a different location in his home.

I think this piece could have been done as a photo and audio slideshow.  The photographer could have gotten some really great off-moments and impacting interaction of Frank and his cats.  This way, the movement of the camera would not be so distracting for the viewer.

The Las Vegas Sun posted a video on their website on December 1, 2008. The video was done by Evelio Contreras and it was called Sin City Shooters.

This video was very professional. It was easy to watch and it flowed very nicely. The speech was not choppy and the video was good quality. The camera seemed to have been on a tripod during filming because there was no unnecessary shaking of the camera.

It was very easy to get a feel for the Sin City Shooters and the video was filmed in a way that made you feel like you had met the Shooters themselves. The camera did not stay in one place the whole time. There were over the shoulder shots, close-ups, medium shots, etc. The variety of shooting techniques made the video very interesting. 

About 30 seconds into the video, a husband and wife are shown. I believe it would have been best to do a zoom shot on them to get a closer look at their faces and how much they enjoy being there. 

The text at the bottom of the video that ocassionally popped up with names and titles could have been seen as distracting. I thought it was actually perfect and was a nice way of letting viewers know who was speaking and what they do. It was also nice because it did not stay in the video long, allowing the viewer’s eyes to move back to the subject speaking.

Overall, the video flowed very smoothly and was extremely well done. It was short, concise and still informative. I would highly recommend others to watch it.

This video was about a man named Frank Currell whose wife recently passed away and now he is unable to care for their 80 some cats!  However, in the video, Frank never identified himself, and I was only aware of his name from the text below the video.  Right away, you know the story is about cats because they are everywhere.

I think this story could easily have been told as an audio slideshow as well because the video itself was pretty boring.  It showed old Frank sitting there with a bunch of cats the whole time and that is pretty much it.  I think it would have been better if they showed Frank up and moving a bit more or went more into his personal life.  They could have shown a picture of his wife or him playing more with all of those cats.  I did enjoy the shot of the cat with it’s tongue sticking out.

I also think this video was too short and that more things could have been added to make it better, like showing his sons playing with the cats or something.  This video looked very amateur and a lot could have been done to make it better.

 I found Cats Need Homes to be a very unique piece. The video was about a man that owned over 80 cats, but due to being sick with cancer and his wife’s death he now needed to find the cats new homes. The story was very short yet through the angles and images I was immediately interested.

The camera changed angles frequently which helped the story flow. One issue I did have with the camer was that it was shaking a lot. Since the camera was shaking so much I assume the video was shot by a beginner. The camera would frequently get a close up and then shot wide angle frames. This was great because then you could see what the house looked like with so many cats roaming around. The feel of the video was very natural and the camera allowed the audience to step into this mans everyday life with his cats.

There were some good interviews during the story but you could not consistantly hear what was being said, I don’t believe the microphone was close enough. The camera also did not use the 1/3 rule which I now understand the importance of because it is the best way for shooting an interview. The unique thing I did like about the interviews is that as the main character spoke the camera shifted between various angles to show all of the cats. I also really enjoyed how the camera was low to the ground so it was as if you were roaming through the house as a cat.

Even though it was fun to view things at the cat’s level when the camera shifted back to an interview the camera was cutting off the top of the man’s head. You should always make sure you aren’t cutting heads out of a camera shot. I also feel that when the film started and ended it seemed extremely abrupt. It was as if the camera was just turned off and then back on.

This was a very captivating piece and filmed nicely. Video was by far the best medium for this story, if there were no visuals the story would have been extremely boring.

The New York Times audio slideshow “Rocket Man” was overall a very interesting piece.  It was about a man in New York who owns a business that sells old car parts.  However, he also rebuilds old cars using some of these parts and also creates masterpieces of his own.

I found myself being more focused on the pictures instead of the audio, so if there hadn’t been any pictures, the entire audio would have been boring.  Additionally, I think that just text would’ve been boring as well.  At one point, there was a picture of a vehicle that had been created, and I think that a video of this would have added to the piece.

There was no natural sound, which I think could have added to the piece.  Overall, this was a very interesting video and very well-made, but a few things could have been added for improvement.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/02/22/automobiles/collectibles/20090222-desoto/index.html