Young Survivor - ID# 365
Homewood-Flossmoor
Documentary
Entry Description
Following the journey of a young child as she battles, and evenyually beats, cancer.
Copyright Info
Recent Teacher Comments
- 4/13 11:00 am - Keepers: Wonderful work! This was a fully fleshed out story that was very well paced and driven equally by great interview soundbytes and visually appropriate broll and nat sounds. Nice work pacing your edit and working through that broll. The audio and overall mix was great and I liked that you varied your songs so they changed with emotional mood swings of the piece. Improvements: In terms of storytelling, I would have been nice at the very end to have had a sound byte about the cancer bell to define what it is and what it means and then bring up the nat sound of the bell ringing. As great as the broll was in this piece, the composition of the primary interview shot could have been a bit better. Some more depth and a slightly wider frame would have been a bit better. Additional lighting in the background would have filled out the room and the space more. In terms of editing, make sure your titles are within the title safe zones. The first few on the lower left fell outside of that and your risk having your text be cut off on certain televisions or monitors. Nice work, overall. This is something to be proud of. Keep pushing yourself to get better.
- 3/6 6:44 am - GREAT use of b-roll and how it is integrated into the interview segments. Audio is clean. The music bed was effective and appropriate.
Judge 1
Positives: Wow - great use of all of that archive footage! Nothing better than to have actual footage to use - to really help improve your storytelling. Also, great use of natural sound from that archive footage. People tend to forget just how much using that sound helps your edit!
Improvements: Normally I am not a fan of having just one person as the only voice in telling the story - but in this case - Joy's dad was an excellent story teller so it worked very well!
Judge 2
Positives: This story is heartbreaking and captures every parent's worst fear. I was engaged from the very start of the film and the slow-paced editing style serves the film well. I loved how the film had a happy ending with Joy on camera!
Improvements: I think that the piece could be cut down by a minute. I also think the music transition from sad to happy could be smoothed out and made to be a few seconds longer.
Judge 3
Positives: What a beautiful story! I loved all of the great family footage and your use of b-roll. The footage of the injection...everyone can feel empathy for Joy and her dad in that moment. Very well done! I really love that we got to see and hear from Joy at the end of the story...I actually wish I got to hear more from her. I also think your audio work was really well done! The interviews were clean and the music beds were appropriate to the scenes and mixed well.
Improvements: While not necessarily possible, maybe consider adding an additional interview that could speak to some of the same topics that Joy's dad spoke to. The additional perspectives (especially from Joy) would only help in keeping the attention on Joy's experience and not just her dad's viewpoint of the experience. The interview footage and the story as a whole might benefit from lighting the scenes a little more dramatically. Nothing too moody, but maybe adjusting background lighting or even depth of field on your camera would only help.
Judge 4
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Judge 5
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