A Legacy Brewed - ID# 257

Homewood-Flossmoor
Documentary
Entry Description

A short documentary exploring how Homewood Brewing Company honors Juice WRLD's legacy while bringing the community together.

Copyright Info

Recent Teacher Comments

  • 4/21 7:30 pm - KEEPERS: Cool documentary about creating something positive from a tragedy. I liked the animated graphics you used for lower thirds and for bump ins and outs. Good amount of broll and news footage used for this. IMPROVEMENTS: It's curious that this documentary is produced in an expository style a la Ken Burns the Civil War. I'm not sure why. Instead of omnipotent voice over, why not have Juice Wrld's mother drive the narrative? You can use the opening of the brewery as a launch point into a narrative about Juice Wrld and his legacy. Typically the style by which you produced this is saved for documentaries featuring very old topics - topics that have few if any living contemporaries. Thiis felt more like a very long news piece. More broll was needed. Specifically, shots of Juice's mother giving the camera a sort of behind the scenes tour of the brewery and pointing out the elements dedicated to her son. In terms of post production, do NOT be afraid to blend your audio more. By this I mean, bring in the sounds of Juice's early free styling as his mother is finishing up her soundbyte, then let it play on as you cut to him. This smooths out your pacing and lessens the choppy feel. More music was needed throughout this piece. This documentary is primarily about honoring the life and legacy of a musician, so let's hear some hip hop underneath this that will improve the emotional quality of this piece and also help to influence transitions from one point to another. Let's hear the HF band in your mix as well! In terms of editing, as cool as your graphics were, make sure they are in title safe! Lower third graphics should have all text within those boundaries to appear professional. If you're unsure what title safe is, please ask your instructor, as you have real talent as an animator.
  • 2/25 1:47 pm - STORY: This doesn’t seem like a documentary. It seems like a news package. If it is a documentary, what is the focus? Is it about the brew pub? Is it about Juice Wrld? Is it about the Live Free 999 foundation? If this video is TRULY about the Homewood Brewing location, then you need to have shown more of the space and some b-roll of events that take place AT the location. If it’s so important to the community, as a legacy, you need to SHOW why it’s important to the community. It just isn’t clear what you are trying to do with this video. PRODUCTION: You have a lot of b-roll. The interview footage was poorly lit; lighting makes everything better, and you need to be aware of how the lighting (or lack of lighting) also makes your footage look less professional. Particularly the interview footage with the mom was dimly lit and it detracted from the video. On the flipside, the interview with the girl at 3:41 which took place outside was well lit, but the audio quality was terrible because the wind noise kept cutting in and out of her interview.
Judge 1

Positives: Well executed introduction about the brewery before jumping into specifics about Juice WRLD. Cohesive and well-paced story about Juice WLRD's life, impact, and his mother's brewery. I get a full sense of this artist's impact he had on his community, and how his mother continues the legacy.

Improvements: Carmella Wallace's interview shots were slightly underexposed. The jump to the breaking news segment was quite abrupt.

Judge 2

Positives: His personal story as told was very informative and worked well. The editing was clean with no glitches. The pace was good and kept my interest. The images told the story well.

Improvements: I think there was too much news footage. I found it distracting that there was so much of it. The shot in the auditorium could have used more light or exposure.

Judge 3

Positives: I got a really good sense of place via the camera work and subjects you chose to interview. Really great B-roll or photos to show the impact of this person and space. I liked the narration approach your decided to go with. If you decided not to do that, the story would have a more "fly on the wall" feel, but this approach makes it feel more personal to you, the filmmaker, so I really liked you went this direction. Amazing work, this feels like a well told story and technically proficient. Well done!

Improvements: It would have been nice to hear that marching band performance you reference near the end, is there any sound or more b-roll of this? The interview at 4:07, maybe it would have been better to have your interview subject look to one direction vs into the camera. For some reason, it felt a bit odd to me when the subject was looking into the lens vs the other people are not. I'm not sure about the digital zoom push in 3:13. Not saying take it out, but it threw me for a loop! Maybe try removing it?

Judge 4

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Judge 5

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