Chapter 8 begins with the story of a man filming a handicapped boy playing baseball. They may say a picture is worth a thousand words, but in this case, pictures could not do the story justice. A video had to be done. Without commentary, without interviews, without distractions, the boy running the bases stood on it’s own. In this chapter, Briggs talks about using video to tell a captivating story.
The video revolution has helped many people be able to make video much cheaper than before. Now it’s as easy as filming from a basic camera, uploading to your computer, and posting on a site such as Youtube. It’s that easy.
I even remember back in middle school, me and my friends used to make funny videos in our free time. It was much more complicated back then to get our videos online, but nonetheless we managed. Now it’s as easy as the click of a couple buttons.
Briggs also talks about how quality doesn’t seem to matter to the audience any more. The audience today is much more forgiving and will accept many different types of video and quality. Although, I would say that the more entertaining videos would be much more likely to get higher views. Many news stations are changing they way they think of this as well. Some are even publishing videos sent in straight from cell phones. Much less time is wasted on the editing and they news still gets to the audience.
Briggs gives tips on how to best make a video. He states that after the initial vision is complete, the only thing left is filling in spots with footage.
1. Use different approaches for different projects
2. Try storyboarding
3. Mix your shots
4. Build five-shot sequences (close-up on the hands, close-up on the face, wide shot, over-the-shoulder shot, creative shot)
I personally enjoyed this chapter because it lays out exactly what you need to know about filming a story. It’s an easy, but quick read that is extremely helpful for a beginner.
Next subject Briggs talks about is voice in video and how to do effective video interviewing. An interesting thing he notes that I didn’t really think of before is that fact that during in an interview, you must switch to non verbal cues for communication. So instead of saying “yeah and right,” you would switch to a simple head nod.
He lists some tips for filming:
2. write a script and warm up
3. be stable, breathe easy
4. don’t be afraid to talk with your hands
He also talks about camera choice, editing software, and other filming techniques.
Overall, this chapter is definitely interesting for the beginner. I enjoyed it.