The Life of Yang Liu - ID# 134

Hinsdale Central

Documentary

Entry Description

This video is the third in my series of short documentaries profiling the lives of different people of different ages in China. Yang Liu actually used to be a very close friend of mine, before I moved to the US. I haven't seen her for almost a decade until I went back to China this summer. Her story's pretty tragic and sad, even more so than this video mentioned, yet she still remains such a positive and kind person. It's quite inspiring.

Recent Teacher Comments

• 3/27 10:28 pm - Excellent use of B-Roll and but leave the subtitles up a bit longer because they could be difficult to read. Their is a really good story here and I was impressed with the complexity of what you took on. Your description was written really well and gave me some insight into why you decided to produce this piece. Nicely done!
• 3/6 9:41 pm - Great job taking on a challenging and inspiring story. It was impressive that you were able to get that much coverage, but the overall story felt very rushed and challenging to follow. The subtitles were sporadic in how quickly they were left on the screen. As a rule, make sure you read through it twice so the audience doesn't get lost.

Judge 1

Positives: FIRST - What a great story! Doing a story such as this is difficult to say the least. Often times we need to go back and shoot some video to cover part of the story... I understand the concept of "you work with what you have." You told a story that people need to watch and understand. What a great gift and tribute to a beautiful person. I hope you continue to tell stories like this. No matter what score you get in this festival... You should be very proud of yourself.

Improvements: The jump cuts in the interview were a bit hard to watch - I feel that sometimes a jump cut works but consider covering the bulk of the edits with b-roll. I found it hard to read the subtitles while the jump cuts were distracting me. Natural sound on the Broll would really help. Always remember to shoot more broll then you think you would ever need. Especially when going back to do pick up shots is not an option.

Judge 2

Positives: The story was very touching. The use of broll was very effective in giving a sense of the location.

Improvements: The interview audio is not the best quality. A lapel or shotgun mic should have been used. The interview could have been shot better utilizing proper screen composition.

Judge 3

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Judge 4

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