Steve Farber Documentary - ID# 513
Glenbrook North
Documentary
Entry Description
This documentary follows the story of Steve Farber, a high school math teacher, who survived a heart attack thanks to the amazing rescue of two strangers.
Copyright Info
Recent Teacher Comments
- 3/27 2:04 pm - Keepers: Interview setups and backgrounds are very well done. The two-shot is especially good. Really nice, well-balanced dialogue audio throughout the documentary. Some nice broll moments, particularly at 3:10 where their is a live demo of CPR. Improvements: In terms of story, I want to know more about Steve and how he recovered. I feel like this was an unanswered question that loomed large in the documentary. All of the information about AED and CPR training is great but it went on too long. Humanize the story and focus a bit more on Steve's journey. You mention DeMar Hamlin at the end of the piece. I think it might work better at the beginning of the documentary as a lead in to Steve's story. Steve's interview set up needs to follow the rule of thirds a bit better. He's a bit too centered in the frame. Put him a bit more to camera right. As an overall look, I'm not sure if this was intentional or a stylistic choice, but the interview footage was all excessively cool and overexposed. I'm not sure why. If it was a mistake, make sure you white balance your cameras to daylight and use your histograms to ensure your shot is properly exposed. It can be tough to tell when you're shooting outside, which is why the histogram becomes a very important tool for proper shot exposure. The documentary could have really used some music to help push the emotion and drive the mood of the overall story. 2-3 songs would have really helped. The AED broll was good but perhaps have it demoed at the actual scene or some other public space that can mimic the actual location. Having the demo at a swimming pool sort of pulls you out of the story. As the rescuers described the scene where they rescued him, it would have been more effective to have them actually up and talking over the exact spot rather than getting that in an interview. It's the rule of show don't tell and that's how you do it in effective documentaries if you don't have the actual footage of the incident. Same thing with the police officer. Film the sit down interview and then interview him as he's demonstrating how to perform CPR. It would make for a more dynamic story moment.
- 3/5 7:48 pm - Very interesting topic. Good job getting information from the subjects. Some good b-roll. Good job editing between the different speakers. Some of the b-roll does not quite fit or could be better (the shot of the swimmers doing CPR doesn’t seem to fit, for example).
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