Vespers: A Sacred Space - ID# 156

Homewood-Flossmoor

Natural Audio News Package

Entry Description

A piece on an old-school choir and what it feels like to experience them perform.

Copyright Info

All music was recorded manually using a voice recorder on 2/1/2020

Recent Teacher Comments

• 2/24 10:04 am - Interview shots are very cinematic; the creamy lighting and vignette make this feel more like a feature documentary than a news package, which is cool....BUT...some of the interviews have even lighting with soft shadows, others have some real hard shadows that are distracting. One solution would have been to just bounce some of that hard lighting to fill the shadows a little bit more. This could be accomplished with a glossy white foam board from the Dollar Store. The b-roll in the church was very nice; good shots of the church architecture and features, exterior and interior. Nice shots of the choir. Sound: the interview audio was okay, but I definitely heard some ambient hiss that made the interview audio sound a little bit muddy or soft. The choir nat sound clips were good, but your mix between the singing and the interviews was very close to pushing the threshold; it's important to bring the nat sound from the choir down when you have a speaker coming back into the mix.
• 2/22 8:35 am - Visuals that are so beautiful benefit from frequent dissolves between shots, not cuts, to maintain a smooth but slow-paced flow. And with such beautiful architecture, why not interview subjects surrounded by it instead of plain backdrop? Wanted the first natsot pop earlier than :31 in a feature about a choir. :54 into a story about a choir and we have yet to enjoy medium or tight shots of it. Finally a medium shot 1:20 into story. Some titles look outside the title-safe zone. 1:35 - must crank-up iris when shooting at windows. End shot should be of choir, not talking head. All A- and B-roll shot steady, smooth. Sound bite audio quality solid.

Judge 1

Positives: I love the natural sound bites. I like seeing the video to what they are talking about. One example is showing the church while describing the scene.

Improvements: Start with video to set the tone of the story and not the interview, and make sure the interview isn't centered in the shot. Sound editing needs more work. Levels were too hot at times and it can be distracting.

Judge 2

Positives: -Creativity was obvious here! You put your interview subjects against a blank space and centered them, which is not typical but i think really conveyed a stylistic choice that fit for this piece. Your coloring and lighting also fit the theme of this story and was another nice stylistic choice that really worked. Great job filming inside a cathedral as well, i know that lighting can be tricky. -Great job weaving the audio of the singers up and down throughout the piece. When you used it as nat pops, it never felt jarring, but instead felt really natural and flowed well.

Improvements: Ways to take your pkg to the next level: -The singing was beautiful and that's what this piece was about so we want to hear that right away off the top! It was a little confusing to hear that come in late at a random point, it felt like. -While I think the way you did your interview shots was very creative, it does add an extra element when you mix up the backgrounds and width/ tightness of the shot. I think the creativity here worked, but it could've been taken to the next level by seeing each of the interview subjects in different environments or spots.

Judge 3

Positives: This piece is very well-executed. The story is clear and well-told with good pacing. Additionally, the nat sound and the camera work support the story very well. The music fades in and out beautifully, and the piece is full of dynamic shots.

Improvements: The interview shots could be improved - they are slightly blown out. While I think the story was very good overall, I think it could've benefitted from making it clearer where this story is--just a simple bite along the lines of "we're at this church in [enter town name]" would've helped make a connection.

Judge 4

Positives:

Improvements: