Kicking it up a notch

Here it is, my final project. At first, I thought I wanted to make another Soundslides project. Then, since I really liked the way the other one turned out, I thought I would try my hand at a broadcast-style video piece. Then I had no idea what I wanted to do.

Because of this, I decided to combine everything we've done this year (audio, photography, slideshow-style storytelling and video) into one project to create the ultimate example of indecisiveness. When you can't decide which style to do, why not do them all?

I first imported my pictures and raw video into Movie Maker since Premiere was taking way too long to download. After I knew roughly the length I was looking at (1:20:20), I could edit the most relevant portions of the audio to fit accordingly. I had a lot of audio to work with (over 16 minutes) so I had to be very selective with all of his stories. I wanted to make something on the shorter side since my previous project was a little long.

The only thing I had to account for was some extra space for the title and intro slides, so I used my "silent" background noise - which I recorded before the interview - as filler for the beginning and end. I could have put audio of the practice I went to, or something else, but I there were spots where the wind kind of ruined the sound. I also did the white noise rather than music because I personally think putting music (especially something with lyrics) takes away from a story and gets old very fast.

The ambient sound at the beginning is a little long, and probably could be occupied by something else, but overall I think this works as a nice supplemental video to a print story that incorporates just about everything utilized in this class.

Here it is:
"Soccer player kicks the international flair at UNH up a notch"

Commentary on video strategies

To be honest, I'm not exactly sure how I feel about the video debate. It would be nice to have larger, high-quality productions to complement stories. These can provide information and elements that no print story ever can, and the higher the quality, the more apt people are to watch and pay attention to the video.

On the other hand, short videos will allow us to put up quick information and not devote a team of people to one lengthy project. Both have their downfalls (especially short, crappy-quality videos), but in the end, I think a mix of both would probably be the only way to go. Putting up quick, bad videos will work for a breaking piece, but as new writethroughs of the story are being made, a larger, better video should be made. Obviously this won't work with everything, as a major event captured on home video could not be replicated. This is really the only area I see that high-end gear cannot be used solely in video storytelling.

I guess I don't really agree with either guy about their worries or hatred for one particular method. The only thing that will bring readers to a paper's site rather than elsewhere on the net for a video will be its timeliness and its effectiveness. If it doesn't add to the story or grip the reader, then maybe you should try the other method of video reporting for your project.