Weekly Blog 9: ONW Lip Dub Package & Fox 4 Field Trip

This week was a busy one.

For this week's edition of ONW Now, I created a package to go behind-the-scenes of this year's ONW lip dub.

I interviewed director Skai Gray and assistant director Lilly Beckwith and asked them questions about the entire process of creating the lip dub from the first idea to the actual production. Skai had a lot to say about the design process, and she mentioned that when they first presented the idea to administration, they had many questions for the production team that they hadn't even thought of beforehand. Lilly talked about the sheer amount of work the team had to do to make the production a success, noting the prep night was an important part of the preparation.

Overall, I was pleased with the finished package. I was able to grab b-roll that was relevant to what Skai and Lilly were saying, and I had a nice variety of b-roll shots that I implemented. For example, I followed behind Cyle (the cinematographer) through all four takes of the lip dub, so I was able to get some nice shots of both Cyle and the people helping guide his chair and the rest of the students and staff lining the hallways. I grabbed b-roll from video that I took on both the prep night and the actual day of production, and both days, I filmed in 1080/60p. This allowed me to slightly slow down some of the b-roll shots while still exceeding the 30 frames per second the actual package was in.

I was originally going to film both interviews in the e-Comm conference room, but Skai suggested that we set up in Ravens Nest due to the good lighting it had. I ended up really liking the footage I got. I filmed Lilly in the conference room to have variety in interview locations, and I liked the setting; however, I did not do as good of a job framing her that I would have liked. I ended up adjusting the scaling on her interview, and it turned out pretty well. In future packages, I'll err on the side of caution and frame subjects a little more zoomed out than I normally do so if subjects move slightly I can adjust scaling in post.

We also headed out to Fox 4 today to see a professional newscast in action.

I talked with Jana Calkins and Rob Collins about college and career paths, and I got to see their main studio, the control room, their other sets, and their newsroom. It was a very educational experience and it was great to get a glimpse into what the real news world is like.