NEWS Story IDEAS
The Slippery Slope & Sophomore Steps
Recently I've been hearing a lot about how dangerously slippery the steps and the ramp are from the junior and sophomore parking lots. I personally don't drive but I've heard multiples stories about people falling and sliding and there are some students who have some serious opinions on their conditions. I think the sophomore steps may have even been blocked off with a caution sign. I want to get to know some stories from drivers and figure out why this ongoing problem doesn't seem to have a resolve.
New Custom Bowls at the Bistro Cafe
The food program at BBA has introduced another great lunch option at the Bistro Cafe in the Student Center. With many different bases, toppings, and sauces, the possibilities are endless, even for those with dietary restrictions. I'd like to get to see the process behind the counter and ask some students what they think. Additionally, I'd like to discuss the grain of the day, and I'd like to ask the staff whether any new bases, toppings, or sauces may be introduced at some point in the future.
The Inside Scoop on BBA Trips & Exchanges
I'm going on the Ecuadorian exchange trip this summer with Mr. Nolan and I know there's an upcoming trip to Spain. I'd like to interview the teachers hosting the trips and learn a bit about where in each of the countries they're going and what they plan to do there. I'd also like to interview some students who plan to go on these trips and ask them what they're most excited about, if they're nervous, and how much they know about the country they're going to or the language spoken there.
NEWS Stories
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my standup
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interview/timeline
The Hip Hop Club
Making the news story about the Hip Hop Club at BBA was challenging at a few different steps in the process. It was my first time doing a standup. As I realize now, I was so focused on saying everything I had to say and saying it loudly that I didn't think much about my tone or pace, but I think it turned out alright. The biggest challenge we faced was our interview with Mr. Nicholson, which went wrong twice. The first time, we set everything up perfectly and had set up a beautiful shot, but returned and uploaded to footage to discover the microphone had record no sound whatsoever. After deliberating and scheduling time for another interview, we went through the same process again to discover that this time, there was sound, but it was at whisper level. Knowing we couldn't reshoot again, we attempted to salvage the audio, which was seemingly impossible to preserve the quality. In the end it sounds muffled, but hopefully comprehensible. Shooting B-roll was rather straightforward in theory, but it was a struggle to ensure the shots where focused enough while not missing any important moments, resulting in some blurry shots that would've been awesome but were annoyingly unusable. Next time, I would make a point of zooming in and pinpoint focusing the shot and stabilizing it with a handheld stabilizer. We attempted to use a tripod as a makeshift stabilizer but it was too heavy with the 70D and there wasn't enough leverage. In terms of the audio, the next time doing an interview I would record audio additionally from my phone. This way, if we have problem with the rode mic, we would still have reasonably good audio.
The One Act Festival
I was more involved in the making of the other news story, but I can still talk a bit about making the One Act Festival news story with Sophie, Chapin, and Mia. We started by identifying who we wanted to interview for the story, and decided on interviewing Jim Raposa, the head of the theatre and drama department who is overseeing the process, and Olivia Saunders, who is directing the festival. Then we came up with questions we wanted to ask them, starting with the obvious ones, and then thinking about what we would want them to say, and what questions we could ask to get them to say what we want. Then we scheduled the interviews and focused on getting B-roll and filming the standup. Sophie, who is in the One Act Festival, filmed some footage during her rehearsals, and Chapin came to one rehearsal to get some additional footage. Because the theatre is dark, some of the footage came out grainy because the iso was turned up as an attempt to compensate for the lack of light, but there were also shots that were not as grainy and well light from the stage lights, so we had enough to work with. Mia did the standup, and Chapin filmed while I helped with the equipment and lighting. We decided on a location in front of the wellness center where we could get the sun hitting from the back in order to create a highlight, almost an aura of light. This shot ended looking great, and as it was a chilly day, you could see her breath, and it created this very genuine scene of BBA in the winter. Next time I would try to make sure there is ample lighting to get B-roll shots without ending up with a lot of noise. I would also consider filming the standup in a similar area.
color correcting
our footage
the timeline