Category Archives: Video

The video from class yesterday

The video we watched in class yesterday, which was about a young woman and her family’s experience after she got caught up in sex trafficking, really showed me how creative you can get with video even in a journalistic setting.

Animation sequence from HP7.
Animation sequence from HP7.

In particular, the animation used to tell the young girl’s story (which clearly was not captured on video) really resonated with me. It reminded me a lot of the animation sequence used in one of the last Harry Potter movies…honestly it could even be the same director or artist.

Animation sequence from HP7.
Animation sequence from HP7.

I think it’s a genius idea on how to recite a story without hiring actors or others to reenact it, which connects with viewers on a much less effective scale. The dark figures, which are also in the video, represent the darkness that occurred during the terrifying four days that the girl was separated from her home.

I have always considered myself a creative/artistic person , and therefore it’s a challenge sometimes to keep my mind in a “journalistic” mode. This video gave me hope that I could find a career doing something artistic or innovative, but still in journalism, which inspires me but leaves out some of my true passions. I can’t find the video to embed in this post right now, but I wanted to write about it since the directing intrigued me.

 

Coke commercial parody

Shooting and editing this video in class was a lot of fun, and reminded me of the days I used to make similar videos in high school. It’s intended to be a satirical version of a recent Coca Cola commercial, “A Generous World,” which can be seen at the bottom of this post :-).

Great multimedia journalism storytelling

The video I described below is a perfect example of an effective video story, but this video, Chapter One of a series by PBS “Poisoned Waters” or “Imperiled Chesapeake Bay,”  shows how the same effective storytelling can be applied in a journalistic sense.

animal-18719_640It’s part of a larger documentary on how the way humans live is dramatically affecting  our largest neighboring ecosystem: the ocean. Not only is the ocean full of vital natural resources, but it is home to nearly one million species of living creatures; creatures that are innocent of any reason for us to be killing them.

The narrative voice certainly provides the viewer with facts such as a news article would, but the imagery really allows one to see the impact that humans are having on more than 4/5 of the earth’s surface.  The videographers went to great places and great lengths to acquire these moving images, and for a purpose. This story truly shows what is happening to part of our world’s diverse ecosystems in Chesapeake Bay, which is reminiscent of what is happening to many other bodies of water.

The video makes sure to give enough facts and statistics to remain objective, yet there are few conclusions to draw.