Lab 5: Zi8's and Spring Breaks

Heyello erryone! What you sayin', Buyh?


Oh, excuse me, I'm just practicing speaking the way Bahamians do, so I'll be well-versed in island slang when I CRUISE TO THE BAHAMAS FOR SPRING BREAK IN TWO WEEKS!


You can definitely tell I'm excited for spring break, which Lehigh has from March 6-14 this year, but from the looks of the video below, maybe I might be the only one. Come on, Lehigh students! You're in college! It's spring break! Jeez. Show some emotion, for crying out loud. To be fair, the random students we interviewed for Lab 5 last week don't really accurately represent Lehigh's student body. But man, you would've thought that some of these guys and girls are treating spring break like a 4 o'clock or a dentist appointment. (Okay, that one actually comes from one of the interviews.) At least make traveling home sound like it's any bit interesting.


Anyway, the point of last week's lab wasn't really to get great student opinion or craft thrilling content, but rather, play around with filming and interviewing techniques. After a helpful lecture/burst of energy from journalism professor John Jirik, Jeremy sent us out in the field to interview students about a topic of our choice (spring break, duh) in various spots on campus that he knew would lend different light and acoustics for filming purposes. Lauren, Opi and I all ventured up and down the mountain to places like Ulrich Student Center, the Alumni Memorial building, Campus Square and a classroom inside Drown Hall to see who we could find and in what way we could film them.


Our goal was to see which conditions brought out the best interviews. Some locations were pretty good for both natural light and sound (outside Coppee Hall and on the Drown balcony) while others were poor (in the University Center during lunch hour, inside Ulrich.) I manned the camera for most of the time while Lauren and Opi did a tremendous job thinking on their feet when talking to stubborn students (it was like pulling teeth) so I wanted to achieve a certain consistency with angles and steadiness. I didn't quite get there -- mostly because I kept forgetting to follow the rule of thirds -- but I think I'm getting a bit better with finding it. 


I'm glad we're finally starting to learn such techniques, even if they're still small. That's a big reason why I enjoyed Lab 5, but another reason I think we found success is because the three of us took a lot of steps forward in figuring out how to be a team. We all had well-defined roles, which made the filming and editing process much smoother and made for a better final result than last time around.


Enjoy the video. Oh, and interviewees? Next time around, try to curb your enthusiasm just a little bit. 






(Plus, since I was feeling inspired by Steph's 50 Cent-themed post title from earlier today, I dipped into the Kanye West pool for my own title. Spot the reference?)