FEATURE STORY #2

For my second feature story, I interviewed Bessie Bauman for Student Council to describe the blood drive that takes place three times a year at Olathe Northwest. The blood drive at ONW is one of the most successful in the state of Kansas. In my narrative lead, I thought it would be important to include this fact to explain how much ONW advertises this event and how STUCO is looking for even more students to break the previous record of 316 pints of blood. My narrative lead impacted my work because it describes the ultimate goal of the video, to inspire more students to donate and make the blood drive even more successful.

Although my videos general focus was on the blood drive, I also wanted to have interviews from students involved in the process and students who have donated. I chose Bessie Bauman, the student council president as my main interview because she helped organize this years blood drive. Bessie had an important role in organizing the event and the specific committees that helped make it possible. For my second interview I chose Andrew Ost who decided to donate for the first time this year. Having a student who has donated really helped the video because it showed why students have donated and not just that they should. It adds a more personal connection to the story. These two interviews complimented each other well because they described how the blood drive helps the school and the community and how anyone can donate.

Filming the video was a more difficult process since it was only one day. I had to miss class early in the day in order to film my interview and it definitely made the video more rushed. It was also hard for me to get enough b-roll of the blood drive since there was a lot I couldn't film. Editing the video was a lot smoother of a process. The interviews fit together nicely and it was very easy for my to organize my clips and put them together into a video.

The feedback I received from my class was mainly positive, but the one thing I needed to fix was my pan shots. I used quite a few pan shots because when I was filming I was mainly filming still objects and I wanted to make it more interesting. However, in the editing process I realized these clips did not work, but I didn't have another chance to collect b-roll so I had to work with the clips that I already had. I also talk really fast and I need to slow down in my voiceovers.

Altogether, this second feature story really taught me communication skills needed to find a person to interview and finding a time that would work. It was also a new experience in filming a one day event that made the video a little bit more challenging. Even thought there are still things I would change, I am happy with my end result and I have learned several skills I can take into the filming of my classes semester final.