Marching Band - ID# 248
Metea Valley
Natural Audio News Package
Entry Description
A behind the look of Metea's marching band
Copyright Info
Recent Teacher Comments
- 4/30 4:02 pm - Strengths:I like that the story focuses on competition, making the topic specific and unique within a marching band program. The opening shot clearly sets the context, letting the viewer know right away that this story is about marching band. This is a strong topic choice because it offers the opportunity to capture a variety of interesting sounds. The pan shots are smooth and steady, and I especially loved how the closing b-roll is timed with the song ending—it was very well placed and effective. Areas of Growth: It would have been great to include a student perspective to add another layer to the story. For the teacher interview, make sure the framing follows traditional guidelines for talk space and eyeline, ensuring the subject looks at the interviewer rather than the camera. Additionally, some of the b-roll audio levels are a bit high, which makes it harder to hear the teacher. Adjusting these levels would help balance the sound and make the interviews clearer.
- 4/30 3:04 pm - I usually don’t read the description of the videos because I am hoping the interviews, video footage, etc do that job. After your story, I went to read what your wrote. Your description of the video said a behind-the-scenes look at Metea’s marching band. I would expect that video to be about the work that goes into learning the music, the steps, the drama and the camaraderie that goes into putting together an amazing performance. Your story seemed to purely talk about why you don’t compete. Nothing at all reflected in the title or the description. Going with why you don’t compete… It just jumped right in, give me a couple of sentences as to what some schools to and why and then transition into Metea’s stance on the subject. Also I would have loved to hear from some students on what they think, it just felt like two minutes of listening to the band director defend why he doesn’t take his students to competitions. Good stories are always about people, but I really didn’t get to know anyone other than the director. Your B-Roll could use some diversity; most of your shots were wide cover shots from the backside, after awhile they all looked the same. You need to diversify your shots, give me some close ups of the personalities and instruments. With marching band there is so much potential (feet moving in unison, fingers on keys, people studying a chart, drum major blowing a whistle) As for the natural sound, you have the right idea it is a great way to break up an interview as it moves through various topics, you just always resorted to the same natural audio, the band playing one of their songs. Again with a marching band you have so much potential for sounds to be used, drum major, drums, horns, director shouting out good job etc. Put all those pieces together and you will see your stories improve, you got a great start, now just refine your skills and add a few things to the mix. Natural sound packages can be tough, you're almost there.
- 4/29 6:49 am - The story topic itself was good, but there are some technical issues with this story. First, let’s look at the audio levels. The interviewee’s audio levels are good. But when you bring in the b-roll clips, the natural audio is at the same level as your interviewee, so it makes it very difficult to hear what he’s saying. When you have b-roll in a story, you need to either lower the natural audio so the sound bite can be heard, or you need to bring it full and not have a sound bite at the same time. The purpose of this category is not to just have natural audio, but to have that natural audio help to tell the story and move it forward. That didn’t happen here. When taping the b-roll, put a wireless mic on the director and pick up what he’s saying to the marching band and use that to help tell the story. When it comes to editing, you need to have a purpose for using transitions - whether it’s a cut, a dissolve, a fade, a wipe - every editing decision needs to have a purpose. I wasn’t sure what the purpose of using dissolves was here. When using dissolves, we lost the last word of what was being said at times because the audio was fading out. This story also has what’s known as “ping-pong” with the b-roll. That’s when we see the interviewee, then 1 clip of b-roll, then back to the interviewee, then one clip of b-roll, etc. String together multiple clips of b-roll. And be sure to vary those b-roll shots - we should see a sequence of wide, medium, and tight shots. The b-roll clip that started at 1:08 was not smooth. It stopped, then started up again and the speed of the pan was not consistent (almost too fast). The audio towards the end of the story started to sound a bit over modulated - meaning your levels were recorded too high. Pay close attention to your VU meters when recording and when editing.
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