Video Part 3: Instructions

The Video assignment has four parts. You are finished with everything from the first two parts and will not use those clips again.

Part 1
Part 2
Shoot an interview and B-roll for a real journalistic story. (Audio quality must be good.) Upload clips to Vimeo.
Edit your video story (from Part 3) and upload it to Vimeo.

Follow these instructions for shooting your video story for Part 3 of this assignment:

Choose a really good subject (see below for requirements and details).
Shoot as many shots as are necessary to tell the story. Do not shoot randomly. Use the Five-Shot Method as much as possible (it will make your editing work easier and your visuals more interesting).
Make sure you get a lot of close-ups!
Shoot a video interview with at least one person who is central to your story (more details below).
Transfer all shots from your camera to your computer and watch them. Make notes about what to improve on next time.
Choose the BEST SEVEN clips.
Upload those clips only (UNEDITED) to Vimeo.

Only your best clips will be handed in for this assignment, but you must shoot ALL THE CLIPS now. Usually you cannot go back and shoot more later. You will probably need 20 or more clips to tell the story properly.

The clips you select to hand in should demonstrate that you have shot variety -- differents angles and/or distances. They should show interesting action or activity (not just people standing around!). They should be CLOSE to the action. No shots should be are blurry, out-of-focus or too dark.

The final video must tell a story -- with a strong opening, a real climax, and a resolution. The clips you shoot must be suitable for telling the story you intend to tell.

The story does NOT need to include any close-up hand action -- that was for Parts 1 and 2.

Audio will be graded in the final part of the assignment, NOT this one.

READ THE VIDEO PART 4 ASSIGNMENT NOW so you understand what your end product is going to be.

Good Examples

These videos were shot and edited by students in this course in past semesters:

Find a STORY and tell a STORY.

Story summary

Write this in the assignment entry form in Sakai. Two or three sentences should be enough. Make it clear why this story is interesting to a general audience.

Make sure you convince me that you have a story (WHY should anyone care? HOW is it interesting?) -- and not merely a calendar event item! Do not tell me who you interviewed or what happened. Tell me WHAT THE STORY IS!

Bad summary: Joe Johnson is a member of the UF fencing team.

Good summary: Joe Johnson, of the UF fencing team, practices every day in hopes of making it to the 2012 Olympics.

Bad summary: Gainesville March of Dimes fund-raiser at O-Dome.

Good summary: Jane Jackson and other volunteers transformed the O-Dome into an indoor bazaar to raise money for the Gainesville March of Dimes.

HINT: You should have an idea about what the story is before you even go out to shoot. You should definitely know the answers to these questions (WHY should anyone care? HOW is it interesting?) BEFORE you leave the location where you are shooting!

What is a good subject?

In addition to something that's fresh, interesting, and not something we have seen before, you must think about what makes a good story for VIDEO: lots of action or motion, or emotion, or "something you just gotta SEE." These are explained in Module 12, and you have viewed some good examples.

The best student videos I have seen are videos that tell a story that has action or motion as a natural part of the story. Choose something that is interesting to SEE.

The story does not have to be hard news, but it must be journalistic. It must have some angle or focus that makes it new, that makes it original. You can show us something that happens every day, but find a new twist, a way we never looked at it before.

An example of a terrible story is: "Pets are rescued at the animal shelter." Well, duh -- everybody already knows that. The same is true for: "Workers at the animal shelter take care of abandoned pets." Nothing new there! How about: "People adopt pets from the animal shelter"? NO!

If you go to an event, make sure you find a character, a participant, who can give the viewers a vicarious experience of the event. Don't just talk to an organizer of the event who tells us a lot of dull facts -- that's so boring! Don't talk to the business owner -- talk to the customers.

Make sure the interview and the visuals go together. One student interviewed an artist at a craft fair, and he talked about his art. But the visuals were mostly random people having fun at the craft fair. That's a very poor combination! The interview was about something different from what the visuals showed.

The worst student videos I have seen are those in which a person is mostly just talking. Maybe he or she putters around a little bit -- shows us a trophy, pulls a plant out of the dirt in a garden, opens a door or a display case -- but honestly, there's no real action there. Avoid that kind of story. It is simply boring.

How to shoot the video interview

The main thing is to get close. REALLY CLOSE. Your camera's built-in microphone will not pick up good sound unless you are really in the person's face. See an example.

You must be very attentive to holding the camera still and steady. Get into position and make sure you will not wobble. It's hard to keep the camera steady for more than a minute or two, so you may want to adjust in between questions.

As a backup, you may want to use your audio recorder to record the interview also.

DO NOT interview a person you know. Your interview subjects must be strangers to you.

Naming your files on Vimeo

When you have uploaded all the videos, put them into a Vimeo album like this one. That way you will have one single link to submit in Sakai (yay!).

Upload all seven clips to your own personal account on Vimeo. PLEASE NOTE THAT UPLOADING MAY TAKE A LONG TIME. Uploading seven separate files (even short ones) can take several hours, depending on Web traffic. You may find the uploads are faster if you use a wired (not wireless) Internet connection. You may find the uploads are faster on campus than at home.

Of course you can do other things while your clips are uploading. But make sure you meet your deadline. START VERY EARLY.

In the TITLE field on Vimeo, name each of your clips with a number and the words Video Part 3. For example:

Clip 1 - Video Part 3
Clip 2 - Video Part 3
Etc.

Your real first and last name must be on your Vimeo account. If you need to change it, go to "My Profile" and then "Settings" (upper right corner). You can review the instructions in the Video Part 1 assignment.

You do not need to add tags or a description to these clips for Video Part 3. Just make sure the titles are correct.

Make sure that ANYONE can view your clips on Vimeo. A TA is likely to grade your work, so it must be visible to everyone. This is the default setting, so you should not need to change anything under "Privacy."

There is all kinds of great Vimeo help here:

http://vimeo.com/help/faq

PLEASE NOTE that it is VERY IMPORTANT in this course that you name files EXACTLY as instructed for every assignment. Failure to do so will result in zero points for assignments.

Questions?

If you have questions about any part of this assignment, post them in the Course Questions discussion in Sakai.