Slug & Lede

In a Star Tribune video package by Steve Rice titled “Early Voters Found Lines“, different aged voters are interviewed while waiting to vote at the Chapel Hills Church in Edina, Minnesota.

Rice included commentary from legal voters, as well as young students participating in the area’s non-binding young student election. The program is called “Kids Vote”, and it intends to show young voter turnout and candidate choice compared to legal age voters.

The package begins with different B-Roll shots of the line itself, setting the scene for the story. It then cuts to interviews right away, with the second one being from a young African American student who proclaims his excitement of the possibility of a black president.

I also like how Rice interviewed a bunch of first time voters, since the youth’s vote has been a prominent topic in the 2008 election. However, I think he could have asked them more questions regarding which issues are important to them, and then possibly contrast those interviews with that of older voters to give the viewer a wider variety of commentary.

While I think this video had good intentions, it was very incomplete. It was way too short, and could have included a lot more interviews from people there. Furthermore, there could have been more narration to provide backround information about Edina’s past voting tendencies, or actual statistics of the 2008 voter turnout.

Also, there is a random section of B-Roll in the middle of the video that seems a bit choppy. Just when the viewer thinks they’re getting to the grunt of the information, there is no narration at all; just random shots that set the scene again. While I think these shots can be valuable to the video, they maybe should have been integrated to the beginning, or at least coupled with narration from Rice.

Overall, I don’t think this video was very well done. It provides a very small glimpse of election day in this Minnesota town, and the editing isn’t that great either. The only good part was the final close-up of the “I Voted” sticker, just because it pulled it all together.