Reading #3

 

One of my favorite things Bob Dotson wrote was the part about "how to become a story teller."

 

specifically the part about his photojournalist friend. He didn't have the confidence to write stories because he didn't think he could come up with anything clever-but in all actuality he is the one who inspired Bobs First words in the article. If he would have thought of what he was saying and stress it a little less he would have been able to write that article himself without the help of another journalist.

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Land of 10,000 stories: purr-fect music. March 30th 2011.

The dogs howling in the beginning. the women playing the harp. the grey cat purring loudly. The cars driving by the gas station. Cat meowing along with her harp at the end.

Tight shot on a cats eye. I thought it was really cool because you can see the cat looking at you. Depth shot: Rachel christiansan is seen through the harp strings so you can see her playing and still see her face. Depth shot of a sleeping cat with the Harpist out of focus in the background, you can see how relaxed the cats really get. wide shot of her in the whole room, lets you see how small the room is and how it needs to get bigger.

Harpist-serenades-animals

 

Pictures: this story had a lot of shots showing how extremely relaxed and happy the cats were. one shot that comes to mind is the picture of the Grey cat purring through the gate and going up to it when she got closer to it.

Voice overs: You could really tell how bitter some of the workers were about getting their money for the shelter gambled away. Women in the grey sweatshirt is especially angry and passionate.

Graphics: they used a design of the floor plan to show what the building was going to look like before they lost the money.



1.  What is a "Run and Gun" interview? When can we use a "Run and Gun" interview?
not formally planned. Met someone willing to give an interview. 1 or two questions.
2.  What is the first thing you should do BEFORE starting off for the interview?
test equipment!!!! most important.
3.  Why do you think we should ask for permission?
to be polite. and to make sure they are willing.
4.  Why should we always ask the interviewee to state and spell their names?
for the lower thirds.
5.  Where should we place the microphone?
thumb-pinky rule. Don't give it to them.
6.  Should we hand the mic to the interviewee?
NEVER
7.  The photographer is responsible for the sound levels.  What are two things the photog should be aware of? Making sure the sound meters are at the proper level. Background noise.

8.  COMPOSITION:  How we should frame our interview shot:
a.  Eyes on Third
b.  2 Eyes One ear c. 
Camera should be Higher, Even, or Lower than subject? Even
d.  Talking space or Nose Room


BACKGROUNDS:
9. Avoid shooting in front of  a window.

10.  Why should we keep signs out of the background?
they are distracting to viewers
11.  If we were doing an interview about the high cost of parking at EVHS where would a good place to interview be? the window looking down at the parking lot

12.  What is a demonstration interview and what are the benefits?
the interviewee shows the interviewer how to do something or demonstrates a tallent.

It’s Too for coffee

*Soundbite 1: You know during the summer months uhh we ice most of our drinks a lot of our customers  still need their caffeine fix so you know if they usually get a latte they will get an ice latte instead.

Soundbite 2: umm I think we come; I probably come in here 2 or 3 times a week. Usually, maybe less but max 3 times a week.

*Soundbite 3: uh well pretty typically I like a nice hot cup of coffee, but uh in the summer it’s really nice to just come in and get a cool drink

Soundbite 4: umm well I have got the iced mud puddle right here one of their classics it’s got umm vanilla and uhh lets see and mocha, a little bit of chocolate mixed in there and uhh mix it all up with some ice and it’s a good drink little whipped cream and it tops it right off.

*Soundbite 5: I umm read a lot of medical books and herb books and they say that coffee can actually cool you down, than drinking cold sodas and stuff it just takes your.. it does something to reduce the heat of your body. And it seems to do okay.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………....

Stand ups

*Standup 1: everyone knows to come down town to the Mud House for a great cup of coffee but nobody wants coffee when its 105 degrees.

*Standup 2: for coffee shops like the mud house there is one way to beat the heat and that’s to offer refreshing cold drinks.

Stand up 3: another great thing about the Mud House is that once you get your drink and sit down there’s a lot of great artwork.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

B-roll

Man typing on laptop, wide shot.

Man typing different angle medium shot.

*(maybe)Wide shot of girls waiting in line.

Tight shot of the Mud House menu/sign.

*Tight shot on the word “HOT”.

Tight shot bag of coffee.

*Medium shot ceiling fan.

Worker putting creamer back on the shelf.

Worker making a drink and close up on “pick up drinks here” sign.

Worker filling a coffee mug close up.

Tight shot on “lift my lid” sign

Person lifting up toilet seat on the wall and showing painting underneath.

*Menu of frozen drinks tight shot.

*Another shot of frozen drink menu.

Employee doing some dishes-mediumish shot.

Shot of shaky camera on tables and then another toilet seat art.

Shot of green lady wall art.

Another toilet seat art shot.  Zooms into a painting of a sad dog face

*Women drinking a cold drink with whip cream on top.

Shaky shot of two women drinking their iced coffee. Zoom in on 2^nd women’s drink

Long tight shot of coffee process, puts the handle looking thing on the machine. Puts ingredients in blender.  Gets ice for whatever she is making. Blending it with ice.

*Tight shot on “end of program-ready” on the blender. Employee takes it shakes it, then puts it back on for a few more seconds, then pours it out into a cup. and tops it off with some whip cream. Adds lid and a straw.

“the double peanut butter bubble”? –employee calls out drink name and customer picks it up.

Script

*Standup 1: everyone knows to come down town to the Mud House for a great cup of coffee but nobody wants coffee when its 105 degrees.--- *Tight shot on the word “HOT”.

Soundbite 2: umm I think we come; I probably come in here 2 or 3 times a week. Usually, maybe less but max 3 times a week.

*Soundbite 5: I umm read a lot of medical books and herb books and they say that coffee can actually cool you down, than drinking cold sodas and stuff it just takes your.. it does something to reduce the heat of your body. And it seems to do okay.

*Soundbite 3: uh well pretty typically I like a nice hot cup of coffee, but uh in the summer it’s really nice to just come in and get a cool drink *my bad i could not find the complete script I wrote*

The art of violin bow making

2:28

1.       Tight shot of craftsman tying apron.

2.       Tight shot of craftsman rolling up sleeves.

3.       Medium shot of his face. Holding an unfinished bow.

4.       Tight shot of him scraping the bow.

5.       Tight shot of his face while he is scraping.

6.       Tight shot of face during interview.

7.       Angled medium shot of him flexing the unfinished bow.

8.       Tight shot of him knocking the bow with his finger.

9.       Medium angled shot of him looking down the bow.

10.   Shot of him scraping the bow going straight towards the camera.

11.   Same shot but from a side angle and more out of perspective.

12.   Tight shot of him screwing in the bottom tightening pin.

13.   Tight shot of him moving his hand down the bow towards the base.

14.   Tight shot of him pulling the strings horizontally.

15.   Pan shot from his lights down to his work table.

16.   Medium shot of a table with a protractor looking thing on it.

17.   Slow pan in on hammer, file, and knife looking object.

18.   Tight depth shot of a pile of different bows he has made.

19.   Depth shot of unfinished bow with wood shavings in front.

20.   Tight shot of wood used to make bows

21.   Fade into different angle of previous shot (panning)

22.   Depth shot of him picking up a bow (lower half of his body)

23.   Tight shot of him being interviewed

24.   Tight shot of him holding two bows and pointing at them

25.   Depth shot of him looking down both of the bows

26.   Tight shot of him flexing the strings with his finger.

27.   Tight shot of him being interviewed

28.   Medium shot of him lighting the wick.

29.   Medium shot of him burning the bow with the fire.

30.   Another tight interview shot.

31.   Tight shot of him carving the tip with a small blade

32.   Wide shot of him scraping it again

33.   Tight shot of his face while scraping.

34.   Tight shot of him spinning it in his hands.

35.   Tight shot of him spinning the finished unstrung bow in his hands

One similarity I noticed was the use of shots. Both of the articles used a variety of depth shot when the person was being interviewed. Both of the articles had a good use of talking space. The interviewee was never off set unless he or she was moving around a bit. another similarity would be the use of tight shots I noticed in the bow making story the barley used any wide shots. in the movie rental story wide shots were used more but the camera man used a lot of tight and medium shots, just like in the bow making story One major difference I noticed was the use of sound. In the bow making story it had violin playing in the background almost all the time. In the movie rental story it had natural sound throughout the feature along with having interviewed two people instead of one.

1st We come up with a Topic:Cross country team carries ball to teams homecoming football game.

2nd We decide on a Focus Statement:CC team-runs-ball-far

3rd:  We Conduct Interviews to get Sound Bites to use in the interview:"our cross country team holds traditions...very dear to us"--- "I realized we forgot the football"!

4th We Shoot B-Roll to complement the sound bites- Running down the highway in the night. Overhead shot of them running beside the highway. starting the run.

5th  We Shoot our stand-up. Linking shot/ standup in the middle. while they were running past.

6th:  We Edit our story together adding Voice Overs as Seques between interviews. "their opponent this year is piquat lakes- 168 miles away"


For the Cross Country story we watch in class, describe these 6 steps. 

walldow video

MakeIt Memorable #2

 

 

In the first story, the one I read I believe that the relevance of living in Minnesota kept the remote, or mouse in this case at bay. Also I had to read it for the class. But because of its proximity it keeps peoples attention. Also when the author wrote like this it sounded like he was writing in threes : "The puck was three inches wide. The hole in the plywood was three-and-a-half inches wide. The kid and the stick were 89 feet of ice away." by writing in threes it makes the reader interested and especially want to read the story in this context. Last but not least it surprises the reader. Sure it might spell it out for you in the beginning but after you read the circumstances the boy went through to gain al that money one wouldn't think of giving it back. But the boys end up doing it because their parents felt guilty.

 

 

 

In the second story, the one I viewed, I heard the active voice of the author when he used the verb feeling and chilling instead of was and cold. he used powerful driving word rather than passive boring words. he didn't use any gobbltygook football lingo. He could have catered the story to football fans by paying more attention to the boys records or playing ability. but he payed more attention to the family aspect. The Author was very conversational during the one on one interview with the parents he kept footage of himself joking around with them and making them laugh. Everybody likes to see people laugh, that could have grabbed other peoples attention.

MakeIt  Memorable #1

Bod Dotson rights as if he is talking to you one on one about his immense experience in the field of story telling. When he is talking about mistakes you shouldn't make it sounds like he is telling us learned them the hard way. When he talks about comparing notes I bet that once he really did get into a situation where the different members of his team were all going in different directions with the same story and ended up being a problem in the later stages.

I felt one of the most important things I learned from pages 9-27 would be that ideas are always good. If you end up not using them they might help you spark up an idea for a story in the future. Another important technique would be the "non-question question" It allows an interviewee to open up and really answer the question you are driving at without the conscientiously thinking of an answer that will change the public's view.

I suppose the scripts are written like that so that we don't have to use words like "simultaneously" and "at the same time" in the script. Having the script written like that allows the reader to experience what it is like in video without having it in video or having any images to align with the story.

I viewed a story on thirty rock about a sting of abductions in the Cleveland area are being solved and how one mother is ready for closure on her daughters disappearance. It sets the scene by showing the reactions of the families and the public from when the 3 other missing girls in the area were brought home. It showed the area of Cleveland from a gps perspective and just some shots of the cities streets. It used foreshadowing by the us of the words. "all of this happiness and still one family hopes to find closure". Its sort of saying "good things happened in the previous shot. but there is still something wrong..." The conflict was when the mom was talking about how she sort of blamed herself for the incident. They had been arguing and she decided to move in with her uncle about 2 weeks after that she disappeared. Her mother filed a police report but no signs were ever discovered leading to her whereabouts. Character growth would be when talking about her sister. Her sister was also blaming herself for the situation. Her last word were angry words but she recently created a video with her younger siblings and it was made public by local news and television programs. It was telling their big sister to come home. Resolution was not found for they are still unsure of the girls whereabouts. But since they have not found her remains, it is still possible (though there is a low chance) that she could be alive and being held against her will.

Answer the following questions on your blog:
1.  What is the lead in this story?  Does it intrigue you to keep watching?
its hard to believe this could happen to a home in a quiet neighborhood. I guess so, i want to find out what happened.

2.  What are the 5W's of this story:  Who, What, Where, When, Why
 Heather who owns the house, was robbed, through the doggy door in a quiet neighborhood,v while
 she was away, the robbers needed money I guess,

3.   Give an example of the reporters Voice over or seque (Write it down word for word) "In all the years shes had it shes never thought of anything breaking through her back doggy door."

4.  When do we see the reporter's stand-up?  Beginning, Middle, or End?
 middle he talks about the other houses that got robbed.

5.  What is the purpose of this reporter's stand-up?
to show the reporter and show their face to the audience. taking us to another spot.


move story forward
reporter becomes b-roll
take me to the scene
use props
be creative and surprise us

WALLDO

W: wide, sets the scene.

A: angled, adds a 3D affect to your story.

L: low, Get down.

L: linking, is a shot that connects two shots, tell two stories with one shot, usually a pan.

D: depth, important to show creativity. something in foreground and background.

O: opposite, shoot from the opposite side of the subject. action-reaction.

Fran Story

 

the first shot of the girls at the lockers was a little shaky.
the first couple shots hide the fact that she is missing an arm.
during the one on one interview with her and her father, and coach too their eyes are both on the upper thirds line plus they had talking space.
and the locker behind her is on the vertical line along with her eye.
the footage of the sports teams was a little shaky.
the net of the volley ball court was on the top horizontal line. 
sequence in the classroom.

1.A-roll
interviews, reporter voice overs,natural sound
2.B-roll
video footage that compliments the story
3. Natural sound

Watch the latest Land of 10,000 stories:  A Publishers Dream

Answer the following questions about the story:

1.  What is the focus statement of this story?: Publishers passion fueled by sun.

2.  Give examples of W-M-T sequences: Showing the Chevy Volt.

3.  Give examples of The Rule of Thirds: When he showed the solar panels for the first time.

4.  Give examples of Eyes on Third: "Kari is the managing editor." 24 seconds in.

5.  Give examples of Talking Space: When he was over by the book cases.

6.  What did you like about story?: I liked how much he enjoyed saving money and energy.

Rule of Thirds: Imagine a 3x3 grid on your shot your focus or target should be on one of the intersecting lines of the grid

Eyes on Third: when interviewing somebody put their eyes on the top line and one of their eyes on the vertical lines.

Talking space: Aim their body so that there is more empty space in the shot ahead of their face not behind their face.

1.  What is a Focus Statement?  DefineA sentence that helps guide and focus your story.

2.  Why do we need a Focus Statement?
So we dont get into a story too broad for us to handle

3.  Give an example of a Focus Statement sentence.
The homecoming nominees have unusual talents.

4.  Give an example of a Focus Statement in 3 words: (Subject-Verb-Object)
Nominees-Have-Talents.

5.  What are the 6 Essential Equipment items you need with you when shooting an interview?
1.Camera 2.Tripod 3.Microphone 4.Headphones 5.Batteries 6.Media

6.  Why is a tripod important? 
keeps shot from being shaky. it also makes it look cleaner.

7.  The Tripod is my friend.

8.  Define:  Pan
Moving horizontally.

9.  Define:  Tilt
Moving it Vertically.

10.  Why are headphones important?  
So you can hear the audio that is being recorded. To make sure the microphone does not have a short in it.

11.  Why is it important to TEST YOUR EQUIPMENT BEFORE YOU GO ON SHOOT!
you don't want to find out something isn't working in a later stage like editing. sometimes you cannot re-film something

12.  Define Wide shot: From farther away

13.  Why do we need a wide shot?
show setting and surroundings. establish location

14.  Define Medium shot:less setting more detail

15.  Why do we need a medium shot?
They focus on a specific area

16.  Define a tight shot: Close up detail

17.  Why do we need a tight shot?
More detail than of medium or wide.

18.  What is a sequence?
a series of connected shots

19.  Why do we need a sequence?
to help convey a story to the audience.

1.  Identify, define, and give an example of the 6 criteria of newsworthiness.

Criteria 1: Unusualness.
Definition: Different, unusual, out of the ordinary.
Example: If a plane departs on time and arrives safely it isn't news. but if it crashes it is.

Criteria 2: Significance.
Definition: Important events ones that effect many people.
Example: Elections, wars, taxes, the economy

Criteria 3: Timeliness.
Definition: News that happened recently.
Example: Nobody wants to hear about the flood of last year. It will have dried up already.

Criteria 4: Proximity.
Definition: People want to know about near by events.
Example: The Asbestos problem in the local school.

Criteria 5: Prominence
Definition: Well known people or places.
Example: Celebrity arrested for shoplifting 

Criteria 6: Human Interest.
Definition: An emotional and personal appeal that draws our interest.
Example: a Veterinarian who specializes in elephants, A sand castle competition.

2. On page 23 it discusses the differences between print journalism and broadcast journlism.  Please describe 3 ways they are different and explain.  in print journalism you choose what you want to read by what sounds interesting, in Broadcast journalism you watch what comes to you. in PJ has more human interest and entertainment features. in BJ it covers more timeliness, unusulaness, and natural disaster oriented stories. In PJ its harder to find or not as current if you can find it. in BJ news is shown typically every night so you can find current information easily.


3.  List all the criteria the story we watched at the beginning of class fits under and why. Unusalness. pigs on the highway isn't very common. Significance. A lot of people drive on that road. Timeliness. Happened recently.

4.  List all the criteria the 2nd story we watched fits under and why. Unusualness. Blind and Deaf dog together. Timeliness. Dogs looking for a home. Human Interest. Everybody likes dogs.

5.  List all the criteria the 3rd story we watched fits under and why. Timeliness. Happened recently. Prominence. involved famous people. Human Interest. Most people are interested in that kind of thing.

Interview of a Classmate: Hannah Holmquist

Hannah B. Holmquist is quite an interesting person. She is a person with a lot of strength determination and will. When I asked her "what moment defines your life up too this point?" she responded with a story of how her team won 5th at nationals, the first team even to get there in Eastview history. Some of her other activities are competition diving, non-competition cheer, and playing guitar. She also enjoys traveling and experiencing new cultures. With my brief interview with Hannah I saw her determination though how she set goals for herself. I asked her "where do you think you will be 10 years from now?" she said, "studying somewhere, maybe out of the country!" For her future dream job she would either want to be a teacher or something that let her travel a lot. She also said that she likes Eastview because the high academic standards push her to succeed. 10 years from now she hopes to either be teaching or traveling. When looking back at Eastview she hopes to remember her sports accomplishments. The only things that seem to slow her down are spiders, and heights "those are my two biggest fears," she said.

Interview of Hannah

INTERVIEW

1. In your opinion what moment defines your life so far?
Getting 5th place at cheer leading nationals 

2. What would your dream job in the future be?
Teaching or something that lets me travel around the world 

3. What hobbies do you have outside of school?
I am involved in competition diving, cheer leading, guitar and i enjoy traveling 

4. Why did you choose to take this class ?
I am interested in being a part of the 4-cast next year

5.What do you enjoy most about Eastview?
The high academic standards push me to succeed  

6. 10 years from now whats one thing about Eastview you will be proud of?
My accomplishments  in sports.

7.Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
Studying out of Minnesota, maybe even out of the country

8.What makes you unique?
My red hair, my friends would probably say my personality too

9. What is your favorite childhood memory?
 I enjoyed spending time with my friends and meeting new people at day care.

10. What are your biggest fears?
My first would be spiders my second would be heights