Slug & Lede

 Mary M. Cullen

“Last Call”

            Spokesman-Review’s “Last Call for Haircuts” was a very cutesy human interest story.  It used video to capture the passive essence of the twin brothers that ran their community-renowned barber shop for the past 45 years. 

            The highlights of this video story for me were the interviews with the customers.  Both the older man that claimed “he got the haircut he asked for” and the young boy who explained the tradition the barbershop had become for him and his father were very engaging.  The interviews also represented the complete spectrum of customers that came through the door of the Haines brothers’ shop. 

Although the story was heartwarming and unique, I don’t know if I think that video was the best medium for it.  For instance, there were several long pauses, which although endearing, were more or less dead air time, with one of the twins at a loss for words while he cut a patron’s hair.  Despite seeming truly genuine and humble, neither brother, which was impossible to determine which brother was which, was extremely engaging with the camera or audience.  Their dryness on camera translated into a dryness for the video story, leaving the audience intrigued by the title and idea behind the story, but somewhat uninterested once they tuned in.

I think possibly a more appropriate medium for the story would have been print journalism.  If written as a feature in a magazine or newspaper, such as a feature by the New York Times, the story could have allotted space for pictures of the brothers in their shop, along with photos and quotes from the different customers.  I think a well-written feature could have actually been livelier than the video, because certain points, like the sounds of the old cash register in the background or the response of one of the customers after he was shown his new cut could have been highlighted and used to liven the story.  I also think that print would have allowed for a clearer message for the story.  Guided by the pen of the journalist, the readers would have been able to better follow the uniqueness of the establishment being lost in the Lincoln Heights community.  Left to nothing but few words from the brothers and shots of shears and an antique register, the video audience was forced (although not always a bad thing) to make the majority of the conclusions about the shop, the effect its closing will have on the community and the fate of the twins and the shop’s patrons, on their own.  Overall, I feel that print journalism would have been a better fit for this particular story because the writer would have been able to create a more lively, structured story, while still conveying the spirit of the Lincoln Heights Barber Shop and the people involved with it.

I enjoyed watching Dan Pelle’s video on twins brothers and barber shop owners Bill and Jeff Haines, who after 48 years are forced to close down their shop. I thought the story was told very well through the lens of a camera.

For starters, I liked the first opening clip of the close-up of the barber pole and then a shot of the window pane of the Lincoln Heights Barber Shop with a customer getting a haircut. I think it works well because from the beginning, you know where you are and it allows for an easily transition into the story that is about to be told.

Another thing I thought worked well was the sequence around the 1:07 mark of the video. The sequence shots show a customer entering into the shop. It starts with a close-up of the customer’s hand on the door getting ready to enter, then focusing on a sign that points to stairs that lead to the barber shop, and finally the customer walking down those stairs. I thought that was a neat way of showing progression from once place to another and a way to capture the audience’s attention by switching up the type of shots. If it had all been one similar shot, it would have been very boring but because the angles and close-ups were different, it seemed to work well.

I also enjoyed the interviews with the customers. I like how Pelle shot not only customers who had been regulars at the barber shop for many, many years, but also the younger and newer customers. I think it was a good way to balanced out showing the longevity and appeal of the shop without overdoing it.

Lastly, I really enjoyed the final shot of the video. I like seeing the customer pay and having the camera focus on the old-fashioned cash register, even though I think the shot was a little too long. I think the final action of having the customer and one of the twin brothers shake hands was a wonderful way to end the video. I feel like there’s a lot of meaning in that handshake and I think it’s a great way to capture a moment where words might have failed.

For a not-quite-three-minute video, I thought it was really well put together. There were a lot of interesting shots and I think the story was told well. There were a few shots that I found questionable because the camera seemed to linger on certain items (i.e: scissors, magazines, etc.) longer than needed and I didn’t feel like they added much to anything. But overall, this video had enough to capture my attention and succeeded in telling its story.