Maine East High School V-Show Promo - ID# 299

Marist

Natural Audio News Package

Entry Description

Student producers and performers promote the 2020-2021 Maine East High School V-show and discuss the challenges of producing it amid a pandemic.

Copyright Info

Recent Teacher Comments

• 3/28 8:53 pm - When you have the natural audio from the b-roll stand alone, bring it up full. It sounds like it’s at the same level when it’s under the SOT audio. Bring it FULL so the audience can hear it and let that natural audio of the performances and the natural behind-the-scenes audio help to tell the story of what’s taking place for your Variety Show. Good storytelling.
• 3/18 8:15 am - Great story about your v-show. I especially loved your use of drone footage in some of your shots on the field and outside of the school. The use of natural audio also put me in the story with you. I loved hearing the musical numbers as your interviews narrated your story. Interview shots were well composed and interview audio was clear!
• 3/5 4:44 pm - Solid story. Great use of B-roll and great use of the natural audio of the story that really helps in TELLING the story. Pacing was good between interviews and audio, and the video had a very polished looked to it. Audio in your interviews was consistent as far as levels go which helped for a good sound. The story itself was well told by the interviewees. Overall, a solid project. Nice job.

Judge 1

Positives: Good variety of clips throughout story. I like the sound pops.

Improvements: Sound levels need to be tightened. They are all over the place and it is hard to hear people talking over the music at times. I would suggest having a single song underneath the audio throughout the whole package. Have supers in the beginning, even though students introduced themselves.

Judge 2

Positives: I loved the natural sound at the beginning and how the story didn't start right into an interview. You ease us into the story really well. Great job getting a variety of interviews so that the viewer can see how the pandemic affected the V Show from the point of view of almost every role involved.

Improvements: Using music from the performances was a great way of getting music into the piece without breaking the rules, but it could have been mixed better. The transitions between when the music swells and gets louder again are quite abrupt, and I would have liked to hear it all the way through instead of hearing pockets of silence. Lower thirds are missing for the first two interviews. Even if they introduce themselves you should have one so we know how their names are spelled.

Judge 3

Positives: -Really awesome job on interview framing and lighting! It looked really clean and crisp. -Good job getting creative on how you set up your characters in a nat sound piece by having them introduce themselves. This allowed the viewer to not have to guess what role each person had. -Shots from the Vshow looked really incredible. Major hats off to using a drone and working those shots in! That skill will be valuable for so many things. -I think the sequencing in terms of the storyline worked well. By introducing your characters to start and explaining what the story was about, was a great beginning. Diving into the show and production itself in the middle before finishing on a pandemic impact angle and then a lasting hopeful note all worked really well.

Improvements: -In nat pieces like these, don't be afraid to bring up that background sound even more! Wonderful job trying to weave those musical and singing sounds all the way through the piece, but give them time to breathe. -Also with the audio editing, make sure to fade those background noises in and out slowly. It'll be less jarring for the viewer. The same goes for interviews. Even if you're cutting off the soundbite at a word or in the middle of a sentence, see if you can play with fading it in or out more so we don't hear harsh audio cuts. But- audio editing is a major challenge, especially when you're working with so many sounds, so great job on what you did accomplish with this piece! -I think you had a great mix of shots, given the b-roll you had to use for the piece from the V-show. I would've loved to have seen some tighter shots or sequences, but not sure if those were available as b-roll

Judge 4

Positives:

Improvements: