Broadcast Critique: Procrastination

Pre-Production:

When it came time to come up with a concept for the first Fall broadcast piece we were to make, I didn't want to make a usual piece that you would typically find being aired in the first months of the school year. Instead Choy and I wanted to make a piece that would have a broader audience, perhaps a little beyond just the students and teachers. At first we wanted to do a piece that was a bit larger in scale, but it proved to capture little interest and was difficult to come up with an original way to approach the topic (the Casey Anthony Trial) since it has been covered so many times before. In the end we decided to do a piece on procrastination with a focus on technology. I envisioned the piece to incorporate both procrastination's effects on students as well as how education is being effected by technology. However, these were two separate topics and we decided to focus solely on procrastination's effects on students.
Coming up with how the segment would look like was already pretty much decided early on. We were to follow the old, yet wildly effective, method of coming up with an over-arching voice-over, collecting an interview or two, and filming b-roll that we thought would correspond well with the segment. The interviews were framed so that we would get the types of responses we wanted (cheap, yes I know, because honestly why would anyone put in interviews that didn't support their topic) and we interviewed people who we knew were bad with time management (which is basically everyone, except for a select gifted few).

Production Quality:

We filmed all of our b-roll without SOT, or at least knowing that we would not be using the location sound. We paid special attention to the framing of the shots because we knew that we would lose the audience's attention if we filmed boring shots (but really I would never allow anything boring to make the final cut anyways). What we did to make the shots a little more compelling was that we constantly was using the manual focus feature on the Canon Vixia HF-M300. We knew that the focus capabilities of the camera was competent so we took advantage of that feature. Virtually all of the shots we took utilized some narrow focus. For one of the shots in particular, we set up a few science related objects in the foreground and the class in the background. This made it so that shot seemed like it and purpose and communicated the classroom setting clearly.

Script:

The script was written with the intent of the segment in mind. We wanted to explain how technology is amplifying how students procrastinate now more than ever. I made sure I put in some expert opinions (though we never really stated in the segment that they were) in the piece to give the segment more weight. Striking facts were inserted into the piece partly due to the fact that I have heard them before and thought that they were extremely thought provoking. Our ending consists of some (BS)  advice that we can give to students who seek to improve their study habits. We found several of these suggestions from various sources online. We determined that these were the most important because they make logical sense and that they actually work (at least with us). The last line in the segment was a little cliche anecdote that we though summarized the list of advice.

Editing:

First and foremost, Choy did a lot of the editing. Our editing was really basic stuff, partly because there was nothing flashy needed for the piece. The titles we inserted were basic stuff; we made two layers of text so that it was easier to see the words on-screen. In terms of the workflow, we basically slapped the voice-over and interviews into the timeline and layered b-roll on top. Classic documentary style editing. The overall quality of the editing was flawless in terms of cleanliness, but the audio is not consistent in terms of quality and sound-reproduction.

Overall: Definitely not our best piece nor was it done to the best of our abilities, but it is a nice addition to the portfolio. The lesson to take away from this bad-boy, come up with a complete and holistic vision of the entire piece before venturing into pre-production and production.

Character in Time

The intensity in her eyes transcends her mere 16 years on this planet. She is looking into the camera that is taking her portrait, but her mind is focused on the atrocities that she has witnessed growing up. As the European photographer takes her picture, she thinks about the day she first saw a European man: the same day that her mother died. During that day, the white men came into their village and savagely started taking the women and putting them into large crates in trucks. She remembers how she ran to hide in the one place she knew would be safe, under the the floor of her house. She sees through the crack of her floor her mother struggling with the white men trying to resist capture. The white men seized her mother and threw her into the large truck. She tries to yell, but she remembers that if she does, she too will be taken away. She stares helplessly as her mother is driven away by these white men. Her mind flashes back to the present, the camera gives off a bright flash, and the white man thanks her for letting him take her picture.