-Interview Mrs. Kenny about being Headmaster and the new ideas that she's working on for BBA

Story: Mrs. Smith's car was stolen a couple weeks ago and we're asking her about it. We are going to interview her in the parking lot where it was stolen.

Our Stolen cars story credit and Copy

         I feel like this was a successful film project in the end. John Sebastian, Ruiqi and I planned out the process well and cooperated well. It helped that we had in interesting and recent story to use. I think this was a very realistic story and that people around campus would actually want to watch the video. We reported on a stolen car, and news channels report on crimes all the time on national tv. We could have made it even better by interviewing a policeman who was involved in the crime and getting a perspective from another faculty member at BBA. But I think our film is still effective and informative.

        John Sebastian, Ruiqi, and I pretty much worked on every part of the process together. We didn't split up responsibilities very much to be as efficient as possible, so we could do that in future projects. We did use our time pretty well though, and made a good final product. Ruiqi helped us by pitching the idea to interview Mrs. Smith. John Sebastian had some ideas on other people to interview and that we should talk to Mrs. Smith in the access parking lot. We wanted to have the parking lot in her background, because that's where her car was stolen. I had some input on their ideas and what we should ask about. For interviewing Mrs. Smith, John Sebastian thought of his questions and spoke to Mrs. Smith. Ruiqi set up the lights, and I set up the camera and was director of photography. We all adjusted the shot a little bit and moved around the chair and camera. It was a great shot except for the sun on part of her face, which Nick told us to fix next time we film.

       I edited our first footage last week, and John Sebastian and Ruiqi went out to get B-roll shots around campus. I cut out the questions. But I couldn't move around the clips, because we didn't have sound. I talked to Nick and Evan and then realized we had to go reshoot. I went and told Mrs. Smith that we didn't get sound. I asked if it would be alright to reshoot, and she was fine with redoing the interview. We planned to do it the next day during class. 

      We had to adjust though, because Mrs. Smith did not have time to go back down to the access parking lot. So we asked Mr. Burrows and filmed the interview in his office next to Mrs. Smith's. We filmed her with the window behind her and a table in front. I think it was a decent shot. You can see that it was in a building on campus, with a different parking lot outside.

      Even though it wasn't the shot we wanted, we set it up even better and learned from doing it a second time. John Sebastian and Ruiqi worked on editing the footage and added most of the B-roll. Then we they weren't here, I made the final adjustments on the B-roll and timing and added a couple of helpful sound effects.

Cut a package - putting footage of a documentary interview and taking out the questions and editing it to create a final documentary film

A-Roll - the clips that are on defaulted to as being shown in Final Cut Pro

Anchor - the person that introduces the news stories in front of the camera to the audience

B-Roll - the video clips that go over the A-roll clips to transition between shots

Cold Open - also called a teaser, it is jumping right into the story of a movie before the title or opening credits are shown

Copy - the introduction to a news story that the anchor says before sending it to the reporter

Copyright - you have a legal right to material that other people cannot take

Credits - the lines of text after the film that recognizes the people who contributed to the film

Human Interest - a story that features a person and presents their problems and emotions

Lavalier Mic (Lav Mic) - the mic that we hooked up the the JVC camera and onto the interviewee

Lower Third (title card) - how we show the person's name on the film, below and out of the way of their facee

NAT Sound - sounds produced by normal sources in their normal landscape

Package - all of the clips and B-roll shots and pictures and audio and and sound effects for a film

POV or Point-of-View Shot - when the camera is pointed at what a character in a film is looking at

PSA - public service announcement

Sign Off, Sig, Sig Out - a short personalized message

Stand-up - when a reporter stands in front of the camera to introduce a news story and close it

Tease - a short video that gives pieces of a film without gives much away and makes viewers want to watch the whole film

Two-Shot - using two cameras for on scene. Sometimes an entire scene is shot from one angle and then repeated from another angle to cut and piece together in post production

Videographer  - someone who makes films

Voice-over - recording audio to put over video in final cut pro

XLR Cable - a connector chord used for cameras and lights and microphones

-get a lav microphone that works

-make sure that sound is being picked up before you film

-wait to ask the interviewee to come over to get in the shot until we have al lights and cameras set up

-check sound levels while shooting

-use headphones to check quality of the sound

-you don't need to be first in news

-you will be more popular and successful if your stories are quick and breaking news, but it's more important to have valid information

-a doctor pronounces someone dead, not a reporter