Mr. Gumb

The third piece we covered for our class we really hit a home-run on. We were given the topic of choosing a member of the college community with talent and then to film it. We focused on the RWU Men's Basketball Team, namely, Senior and Captain Dan Gumb. Gumb did a great job in front of the camera. He was constantly willing to work with us, when we needed to change shots, when we wanted him to word certain things in a certain way he was willing.

It was fun capturing him in action slamming those dunks down, Lord knows I've tried and the most I ever got was my hand grazing against the bottom of the net. We were able to film him with some nice background shots of kids playing basketball. Once again the B-roll was rolling in. It's important to keep the kids playing in the background for continuity purposes.

We shot Dan from atop the basketball courts and then on the bottom for the final piece. I was pretty scared holding the camera on the final bit where he dunks right over me. Everybody did a great job putting this piece together, way to go to Dan as well for having a great 4 years here playing for the school.

The Senioritis Disease

So we got into the editing and finally put this monster together, and I must confess.. it rocks the socks. We took massive footage over last week and compiled it with extra footage we had from taking our wonderful flip videos to the bar. So after we compiled all the footage on Final Cut Pro we began to snip and clip different portions.

Thank God Geoff knows how to use Final Cut the way he does or we'd be in a heap of trouble.

Granted we didn't find an authority figure or professor to share their views about Senioritis, we felt that words from the kids going through Senioritis were more important than the thoughts of on lookers. We didn't find a shortage in seniors willing to talk about their feelings about Senioritis so that was nice. We took a bunch of interviews to place on this feed. Once again we learned a valuable lesson... B-roll, B-roll, B-roll. Without your outside footage to coat the voices your piece is pretty much futile and every facet.

We had a ton of fun putting this piece together especially on bar night where we took footage. Everybody played a strong role in putting the feed together so well done to all!

Round Two

For our next news video Team Viper is shifting their focus towards school in the spring time and the agonizing, relentless feeling of "senioritis." The purpose of this piece is to get a feel as to whether or not kids become more lackadaisical and how it affects them? Is it a trickle down effect? Meaning does it affect more than just the seniors.
There's nothing like a tempting warm spring day to get you out of that classroom and out into Colt State Park.

We already managed to acquire some B-roll of the bars from last Thursday (we had fun getting the footage). B-roll is continuously looking like the primary focus of our pieces. Writing just seems to come into the piece naturally after you get the B-roll. This week we'll be filming stand up interviews on campus with a professor and a couple kids here and there. The feed should be complete by Thursday morning! Till next time... team Viper keeps slithering.

Our First News Package

For our first assignment we decided to talk about the smoking ban that was put on campus. The team consists of Jason (camera), Sophia (reporter), Geoff (editing) and myself as the producer. We had little time to begin the project so we got right to work. All in all I think the final piece is pretty good considering this our first real attempt at it.

I felt it was important to capture the ideas of smokers and non-smokers alike to get a full view of how kids feel about the policy. I feel everybody executed their roles with professionalism and dedication. Sophia has a tremendously profound voice when she actually pauses and sounds out each word. Jason did a good job of keeping the camera steady for stand up and B-roll and Geoff sealed the deal doing a great job of "putting Frankenstein's monster" back together.

I'm a bit nervous at the moment given I've checked on Youtube to find our posting but to no avail. Hopefully it will be there by morning.

B-Roll and More

I wrote a piece about the importance of B-Roll on our classe's wiki page. B-Roll is esential to any piece of film looking to be considered seriously. The Flip Camera has been a pretty useful tool thus far. I've taken on trips and started recording other bits for another class too. As far as taking filmed pieces and brining them to Final Cut to be edited we haven't really done that much yet. I feel once we begin the editing process, footage will begin to come together easier. The pieces will be finished (including editing) in a more timely manner. That is all. Till next class this is Chaz signing off.

RA Interview

For this interview I decided to interview my RA Rachel. I had her stand in front of my camera and pretty much give me a litany of her duties as a resident adviser of the Almeida Apartments. While many are hesitant to talk in front of the camera, Rachel was eager to begin her segment and came out firing. It was a very smooth interview overall, there wasn't a lot of dead air or uncomfortable silence.

I learned while shooting this clip that in order for an interview to work all the pieces need to be put together. Questions need to be formulated ahead of time. The positioning of the camera needs to be mounted before the interview even begins. The interviewee needs to be calm and in a good place, prepared to talk about whatever it is they are talking about.

My Camera Continued...

So the Flip Video Ultra made it to NYC with me last weekend and we had a blast. We took a trip to a jazz club in lower Manhattan and to the Natural History Museum. I have yet to get the tripod so for now we'll have to stick with shotty B-Roll footage. We have class on Thursday, I hope we begin to use Final Cut Pro a little more because I have another class I could use that program for.

Till next time!