I kept finding that in this class, we were getting way too much time to think about what we wanted to cover that sometimes it even threw us off, or at least it threw me off sometimes.
Photo: Matthew Mayer
I liked that with this project, we were given an event to cover and were sent off to do it, just like professional journalists. I think that that more than anything provided experience unlike any other class I have taken thus far at Penn State.
Luckily for me however; it was not the real world because I would have been fired for not meeting my deadline. When I went to shoot, I went in pretty narrow minded knowing what I wanted to shoot and when I went back to edit, I found that my footage didn’t match my story idea. This threw me for a huge twist and caused my paranoid self to have to go out and grab more footage, which wasn’t an issue.
I think going forward, it’d be best to have an open mind when shooting and let my characters help me develop a storyline to tell. Although he wasn’t my partner, it really helped to find Patrick working on his project while I was working on mine. He gave me really good ideas and some serious editing tips along the way when his grade wasn’t even invested in the project.
I also think that watching the SISU students work in class gave me more concrete ideas on methods for telling my story. For example, when they chose their final interviewee as well as the President of Penn State, it just showed me that if they can do it, so can I. No one is off limits for an interview. As a journalist, you need to be aggressive and unafraid of rejection. I seemed to have implemented this process recently when picking up girls, but now I need to apply it to my work out in the field.
Photo: Matthew Mayer
Another thing I learned from this assignment is to get in the editing lab the day you shoot. That way, if you don’t have the footage that you need, you still have your hands on the equipment and worst case scenario you can go out and get more. Especially B-Roll if you are developing a story. I felt that my B-Roll didn’t support my story as much as I wanted it too, so after I wrote the story I could have easily went out into the public and got those shots.
More research is definitely required for my next project as well. If I put more time into finding out information, I can have less SOT’s telling my story, and me telling my story with nice B-Roll.
I noticed that I had points taken off for low-natural-sound. I intentionally did this so that my voice over wouldn’t sound too plain. I felt that having the nat-sound low allowed for me to talk but still have my audience connected to the piece. I think with experience I’ll know where to raise the audio and where not to speak. It is still something I am learning as a young journalist.