1st Place :: Division A

Sunset Village

Glenbrook South

Documentary

Entry Description

This documentary shows the plight of people living in the Sunset Village community. Due to unethical operating procedures by the management of the community, many residents are being evicted and losing their homes.

Judge 1

Positives: 1) Well presented - visuals are backed by statistics and testimony in a very engaging way! 2) Very nice variety of "evidence" shots - really gives the viewer an understanding of the community.

Improvements: 1) This is presented in a objective news style intended to let the viewers decide their own opinion on the issue - be careful of words like "irresponsible" and other bias on your part as the filmmaker. Let the interviewers and footage tell the story that you present. 2) Consider starting and ending with a time frame - when did he go into bankruptcy? When will the bidding start? When will we know whether it worked or not?

Judge 2

Positives: Incredible project piece. I can tell this project took some planning and time. Excellent work. The accuracy with b-roll footage was superb. Showing a house split in half while he is discussing it. Sounds obvious to me and you, but not a lot of videos capture all that footage. Great job.

Improvements: The only thing I would add is that I am curious what happened to the CEO now. He declared bankruptcy, but is he going to jail for taking those residents' money? Or did he just go bankrupt and retire to his million dollar mansion in figi?

Judge 3

Positives: Very well rounded documentary. Multiple interviews (all in different locations), great footage- b-roll, photos, etc. and also your use of graphics. It all melds well with the narration and sound. Great choices on certain shots, beautifully composed.

Improvements: On the sit down interviews I think our eye is more trained to have a steady frame. Perhaps have those types of interviews on sticks/tripod. Other types are more accepted to be handheld. One interview in particular, the one with the older male with white hair, seemed to fall out a little bit since the sky behind him was so bright as well. It didn't look bad nor was it jarring. Just in the future be aware of instances like this when it might have been a option to place him on the right side of frame with the house (which is darker) behind him. Just always be thinking of options or solutions to possible problems.