Reminders and Upcoming Dates
The rough cut of your videos will be due by class time on Wednesday, Dec. 1. The final cut will be due by class time on our last day of class, Monday Dec. 13.
The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Nov. 24, will be an editing/production day for your videos. I will be here on campus that day for anyone who wants help with editing, but attendance is not required; you are welcome to spend that time doing additional shooting if that is what your story needs at that point. Monday, Nov. 29, will also be devoted to editing/production.
Here are a couple of student videos for inspiration:
This last one was made for the advanced multimedia reporting class I typically teach once a year. If any of you are interested in pursuing video further, I recommend looking into this class.
Video Camera Workshop
The classic sequence that every budding videographer learns when starting out is the five-shot sequence.
- Close-up on the hands.
- Close-up on the face.
- Medium shot.
- Over the shoulder shot.
- One additional creative angle.
You won’t always edit things in this exact way when you do a sequence in the real world; sometimes it’ll only be three shots, or it might be ten, and they might be in a different order. But the five-shot sequence is a useful framework for thinking about depicting an activity clearly and engagingly with video.
Assignment
Film a five-shot sequence and a roughly 30-second interview with someone (ask them to talk about the thing you’re filming them doing, whether it’s scrolling through Instagram, buying something from the vending machine, playing piano in a practice room, or dribbling a basketball).
You don’t need to edit anything yet; we will use this footage in a video editing exercise on Monday. Please make sure you have downloaded Adobe Premiere Pro and uploaded your footage to your computer by class time on Monday so you’re ready to edit.