Words That Stuck With Me - ID# 420
Metea Valley
Documentary
Entry Description
A mental health documentary that has students talking about what has helped them through the hard times.
Copyright Info
Recent Teacher Comments
- 4/28 8:47 pm - + Interesting topic, vulnerable subjects/interviewees - Use a tripod to create a steady shot, check the focus of your camera for interviews, audio does not sound clean, framing-third interviewee has too much head room.
- 4/4 1:19 pm - KEEPERS: Really great topic idea to interview teenagers about their mental health and the way you chose to frame it around a message that stuck with each interviewee allowed them to open up about their lives in a deeper manner. Really nice idea. I like how you had some broll footage of the students going about their lives in school. Improvements: Work on developing your camera framing overall. Specifically, have your interviews framed so you're following the rule of thirds. Watch your headspace. Have the interview subjects look directly at the person askng the questions rather than at the camera or somewhere else. See if you can have your subjects answer your questions in complete sentences so we don't have to hear the interviewer ask the questions. Work on lighting. I noticed that the school you filmed in has a lot of windows. If you have your subject between the camera and the window, the bright sunlight will backlight your subject. It's always better to put the camera between the window and the subject. That way you can use the natual light from the windows to fully illuminate the subject and you won't have to deal with backlighting. Whenever possible use a tripod for your broll. The wide shots of the hallways, the whiteboards, etc. would be a lot more impactful if they were steadier. Your interview audio was peaking and overmodulated in places. When you set you microphone levels in the cameras, set them so that the loudest louds are around -12db. Then you can boost them in post to the proper listening level of -12 to -3db. I think this documentary also would have been more impactful if you would have intercut your interview subjects so they weren't linearly one after the other, but rather all mixed up. This would keep the piece fresh for the viewer and allow them to see how the story themes overlap and connect between the interview subjects. Finally, work on the timing of your text. Some times the phrases you showed were not on screen long enough for me to read them completely. The general rule is that text should be on screen long enough for you, the editor, to read them aloud slowly. That is time enough for the average viewer to absorb them. Keep telling stories!
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