Blog - Comments

Mike Davis comments on Big news: I'll be teaching a class at Syracuse University

Mike Davis — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 13:34:11 +0000

@John Paul - I'm not yet hosting tele-conferences or discussions but that may be in the future. I'm also considering offering workshops but no earlier than next summer. Thank you for your interest.

John Paul Henry comments on Big news: I'll be teaching a class at Syracuse University

John Paul Henry — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 20:14:31 +0000

Mike -

Congratulations! I would love to have studied under you in college.

I expect you'll be musing over your student's work on this forum? On the subject of teaching, do you host any tele-conferences/discussions?

- John Paul Henry

Alex Sablan comments on How do you create long form visual narratives?

Alex Sablan — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 19:55:19 +0000

This long term project sounds interesting to me. I think it be a nice direction to go especially on days that you feel stuck. With the long term project you would always have something on the backburner.

Angela comments on Me, create a multimedia piece?

Angela — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 16:26:49 +0000

You are way to hard on yourself. This is a great piece.

Thank you Angela - Mike

Bill Wade comments on Me, create a multimedia piece?

Bill Wade — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 04:29:39 +0000

Again, Mike, you have really hit on something here. We should offer the viewer a strong emotional feeling from looking at our videos. And I believe that all too often, the "interview" audio or "narration" drives too many videos. You said, "For me, B Roll is A Roll. It is the story and you should do everything possible to create audio that works with the video, not the other way around. The goal should be to create a short film, not what is called multimedia." As you know a little about my sensibilities, I think sometimes we need to have good visuals with totally different information from the narration and let the viewer piece it together. Give the moving image another chance. Bill

bjorn button comments on Me, create a multimedia piece?

bjorn button — Tue, 29 May 2012 14:35:57 +0000

Great story. As a big fan of short films, I think you did a great job capturing the emotion of the story. Did you use a filemaker developer tool through the process? Video editing is my favorite part of the process because you get to make the story flow.

Libby comments on Me, create a multimedia piece?

Libby — Fri, 25 May 2012 18:48:29 +0000

To me the ending sequence that went to to black was missing some final punctuation. Maybe some encouraging comment by the fencing instructor or some turnabout in action by the student? I really enjoyed the insertion of the old drawings into the sequences. It gives an idea of the provenance of the sport.

I think so many video pieces suck because there are a lot out there who simply shouldn't be doing it. In the age of free publishing though, we get to suffer through all of it. I have seen some youtube junk shorts that I have played over and over. I have seen some things by award winning people that just fail to engage me on any level. No video production whether it's entertainment or documentary will ever be successful on every level. There are very few that are successful across a wide range of viewer demographics. As they say, different strokes.

Mike I'll be very interested in whether you would like to continue with these projects in the future.

Colin Mulvany comments on Me, create a multimedia piece?

Colin Mulvany — Fri, 25 May 2012 16:14:21 +0000

Video storytelling is always done with compromises. The overriding factor is the need to compress time. You do it visually by sequencing--shooting a visual variety of shots (with continuity in mind) and editing them together. This gives the viewer an elusion of time passing. This fundamental, not mastered, results in video stories that lag, ramble and frustrate the viewer. For short-form storytelling on the web, efficiency is paramount. Hooking the viewer early so they don't bolt, sprinkling story gold coins along the way so the stay watching and leaving them fulfilled as the credits come up is what I strive for. Many still photojournalists learning video for the first time, envision that they can reinvent the video storytelling wheel. Mike, if you continue your journey in (e)motion storytelling, you'll learn that you'll need to make some compromises to tell a story the best it can be told. I am glad you got to dip your toes.

Darren Durlach comments on Me, create a multimedia piece?

Darren Durlach — Fri, 25 May 2012 14:13:02 +0000

"The narrative should elicit an emotional response, engage the viewer viscerally. And we should use whatever form achieves that response."

I think you hit the nail on the head here. Story is far more important than style or technique and all that matters in the end is whether the viewer felt anything. Bruce Strong made this point eloquently during his presentation at the beginning of the week.

Storytelling should take the viewer on a journey, plain and simple, and I agree that it should be gathered the most organic way possible, which is as you said " B Roll is A Roll." The natural occuring moments actively happening should be most relied upon to tell the story.

Nice meeting you last week, I'm glad you took the challenge.

Seth Gitner comments on Me, create a multimedia piece?

Seth Gitner — Fri, 25 May 2012 13:06:26 +0000

>go down in the annals of multimedia

Or go down in the annals of 'short films' that is -I am glad you had a good experience Mike!