I am not sure whether people categorize journalistic footage as ‘news video’ and ‘feature video’. Similar to print publications, we mark news articles with labels such as ‘news story’ or ‘feature story’. This said, the video ‘Are EPA coal emission standards strict enough’ could be marked as ‘news video’ and the other one, ‘Clean, safe and sterile at Toronto General’, would be a ‘feature video’. Besides the fact that they are presented in the form of video footage, these videos share many characteristics with both news stories and feature stories.
To begin, I like the ‘EPA’ video from Las Vegas Sun very much. Covering people’s reactions towards the plan to build three new coal plants near Mesquite City, it meets all the criteria that qualify it as a news video. The exposition of the video is quite clear, telling us the basic elements ‘5 W and 1H’ in the very beginning. I found ‘EPA’ very well organized and I believe that the journalist who shot it had a very clear visualization of the end result in mind. Furthermore, the shooting was beautiful and the final edition was edited very well. The journalist interviewed the protesting residents living nearby and recorded the keynote speakers at the conference. Also, he obtained opinions from both sides, making his report unbiased. Something else that I appreciated was that the author gracefully associated still photos with videos. In addition, I could tell from the quality of the photos that this person is a great photojournalist. If I had to point out some flaws in the production, I would say that the footage of people speaking at the conference felt a little bit long. While watching, I had the near-impression that I was about to hear the whole meeting. If the journalist had cut out two to three people’s speeches, the overall video definitely would have been better.
The second video, ‘Clean, safe and sterile at Toronto General’ from Toronto Star, is a nice feature video that delivers information about the cleaning of surgical instruments in Toronto. The opening line, “it is not car wash, and they are not cleaning dirty dishes”, immediately caught my attention. All the information provided in this video was very interesting and new to me. “Forty thousand surgical instruments per week, impressive!” I told myself. The footage shows us a very complete picture of the whole process of cleaning such surgical instruments. However, I felt sick when the footage suddenly switched from images of instrument cleaning to surgery. The blood and organs disturbed me unexpectedly. Such could certainly have been omitted without affected the audience’s level of understanding. When making a video, we should consider the audience’s reactions and attitudes towards images and information. Journalistic videos can be viewed by thousands of people from all age and gender groups, most of who may not expect nor desire to see such bloody images. If that footage were necessary to deliver the meaning and could not have been cut out, then another method should have been found to convey the information.
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