Cafeteria Cleanup - ID# 329
Highland Park
Natural Audio News Package
Entry Description
As the school year continues, staff ask students to clean up after themselves and throw away extra trash in the cafeteria. Students remind their peers of how it is important to keep the newly renovated cafeteria clean.
Copyright Info
Recent Teacher Comments
- 4/10 2:08 pm - Always start your story with a wide shot to establish the location in which your story is taking place. I would call your first shot more of a medium shot. Many of the interviews were repetitive and didn't offer new information until the custodians appeared on the screen. For the MOS interviews, you don't need lower third name keys, but for others, such as the custodians, you should include that in your story. Was hard to hear what some of the folks were saying in a few interviews because the background noise was too loud. Always be sure the mic is connected correctly, and even consider using a hand held mic instead of a lav so that you can get that mic closer to their mouth in a loud environment. While the sound bytes were good, you need to use the natural audio to help tell this story. That's the purpose of the category. It's not just to include the natural audio, but to have that nat audio help to move the story forward and tell part of it. Put a wireless lav on a person and record their interactions. Some of the shots were not steady, and the zooms were not steady. Need to pay attention to small details such as these. This was more of a news package and not a natural audio news package.
- 3/14 9:42 pm - I thought this story lended itself well as a story of interest for everyone however I felt like you didn’t cover it as well as it could have been covered. There were a lot of redundancies from interview to interview, matter of fact the first two interviewers said almost the exact same thing. But truthfully, every interviewer says about the same thing. Instead look at your story as a puzzle that each interview adds a piece (a new element) to form the whole. What you have for your picture is a bunch of pieces that all look the same. For example, Custodian Blue Shirt Guy talks about how it is hard to know who’s mess it is. Custodian Tatoo guy tells us a little more about how long the process takes and if everyone does there part it is not so big of a task to clean up. These are two new fresh ideas, and were nice after about 4 or 5 interviews that all said the same thing. You should always use keys / titles for your news stories as well, if nothing else so I don’t’ have to call someone tatoo guy During your pink shirt guy interview your camera is drifting left and right as well. Also, even though he has a lav mic on, there is still way to much background noise bleeding in and the last half of is interview is hard to hear. Leave some space between some of your interviewers (for example a b-roll shot without any talking) before the next interview starts you want to give your audience a chance to digest what someone may have just said, it also helps break up ideas so they don’t all just blur together. A good example of where this would have helped was at 1:24 the two custodians really just sound like one, and yet they had different things to say. Your visuals were generally good, I think you showed what people what not to do, but I would have driven other visuals home more intentionally. For example, you talk about how beautiful this new space is show me a before and after so your audience really gets it, I just kept seeing the after and after a while just felt preached at. I think showing that contrast would have helped set up the story better (certainly would have supported the first two interviews better) Finally along the lines above, this is a story about the importance of cleaning up your trash, and yet with the exception of the shot at 15 seconds, you never “show” people what you want them to do, that cleaning up your own messes is not that hard to do, and that people in later lunch hours will appreciate having the clean space when they sit down. I encourage my students to put in a “So What” at the end of their stories, this story is screaming so what and yet bossing people around to say clean up your mess comes more across like a parent nagging, rather than asking them what little thing can you do to keep this great space looking nice and respectful for the next person? Also as a natural sound package there were not too many natural sounds, to pull me in.
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