College Video - ID# 62
John Hersey High School
Documentary
Entry Description
This documentary highlights the opportunity the that District 214 offers to first generation college students. In this video HTV followed one family and captured their thoughts and reactions throughout the day.
Recent Teacher Comments
- 4/9 2:46 pm - Great story. The mother adds a great perspective to something all too often taken for granted, especially when she expresses her own wish to go to college. Interviews on location(s) help move story along and give insight into the experience and the thought process. This turned out to be a district promo, in a sense, but did not hammer the point home, as you stuck to the personal story and waited until the end to bring up the program. Nice work.
Judge 1
Positives: Nice job. I enjoyed hearing about Teresa and Ana’s story… and you were able to smoothly take us on a play-by-play journey of the day. It felt like an intimate tag-a-long, and I appreciated their perspectives, intertwined with some personal history.
Improvements: In general, I think it’d be great if the narrative was fleshed out just a bit more with a clearer narrative arc. What I mean is—this felt more like an extended feature news story, rather than an engaging mini-documentary. Try going deeper and figuring out how Teresa's history can more adequately bolster Ana's accomplishments in this symbolic journey. Audio: I see that you used a lav attached to the mother’s shoulder to capture both of their audio. This results in both of their audio often sounding rather muddy and a bit echoey (especially the mother’s). It’d be great if you found another audio solution when conducting multi-person interviews. Also, the audio mix needs a bit of work. During several moments, the music is too loud and drowns out the interviews. I also recommend not using music over the entire piece (it sounds a bit like audio wallpaper). For a piece like this, try incorporating music during major points in the narrative (beginning, end, and segue moments). You included a lot of nice b-roll, but occasionally, you just used a single quick shot before cutting back to the interview, which can look a little visually jarring. Instead, always try grouping your b-roll into groups of 2, 3 or more. Also, the entire piece should probably go through a more thorough color correction pass—as there are some color temperature changes between some of these shots.
Judge 2
Positives: The story and cinematography were very well done.
Improvements: The sound could have been improved by placing the lapel mic below their neck and closer to their mouths. One of the shots was not proper white balanced and could have been color corrected in post.
Judge 3
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Judge 4
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