Covering the midterm election was an exciting assignment. I follow politics so I was naturally interested in the story. Shooting was pretty straight forward. My partner, Dynasty, and I didn’t run into many problems. Most of the shooting took place inside by the poles so we didn’t have to navigate around inclement weather or terrible nat sound.
US Rep. Glenn Thomspon’s supporter.
I found shaping an interesting “original” story the hardest part of the project. I originally wanted to interview both the College Dems and Republicans of Penn State but decided against it because of time constraints. Examining the concerns of young college voters worked instead. I think the strengths of our project revolved around grabbing interesting interviews who really pushed our story. These students were lively and opinionated. They were outspoken!
Kerith Strano-Taylor and staffer Gabby Richards.
I think my project came out well. I need to work on my narrating. Sometimes my stories come off SOT driven. It’s hard to cram everything in when you’re working with a certain amount of allotted time but that’s a lesson I’ll have to learn. I am confident in my writing – I just worry about time. I think my shots were decent. I also think my bridge standup was creative and engaging. Dr. Zhong mentioned using different interview backgrounds. I will do that in the future.
This project was a good taste of real reporting. Nothing was staged. We didn’t have a controlled environment. We were on our own to get a story, get interviews, grab decent b-roll and patch things all together. At one point I saw President Barron and was going to grab him for an interview when a group overheard me and budged in front. That was just a reminder of how dog-eat-dog journalism is. Dynasty also encountered some problems with her Shanghai counterparts that switched the planning of her project completely. These two incidents highlight the difficulties of communications.
I’m looking forward to the next project. I think I’ve progressed when I compare my first package to the election segment. There’s always room for improvement. I accept it and will work to tighten and improve.