Central Top / Deadline

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1st Place

Angelica Dones

Judges Comments
- Watch out for camera shake like at :04. The camera movement combined with the natural wipe of the car is a little jarring. On the guardrail shot, the pan combined with the shallow depth of field/focus point caused the foreshadowing you were attempting to fail. I didn't even notice the skid marks until the 2nd or 3rd viewing. It might not have worked here, but I find that super tight shots can often be good for foreshadowing. They show great detail, but you don't get the WHOLE picture. It leaves you wanting more and there's a bigger payoff when the wider shot is revealed. Nice framing of the home oowner's interview. It felt very natural...almost like she was talking to a neighbor and we were just listening in. Good shooting and sequencing on the damaged sign segment at :50. Good sound throughout. Very well executed "after the fact" story. Good job. - Great great job on this story. Loved the sound with neighbors and getting the interviews in their elements. The shot of the out of focus guardrail towards the beginning didn't work. I think you were trying to show the tire marks but just be more clear about it next time. But overall fantastic job. These stories are always tough to do after the face but you mastered it this time.

2nd Place

Mike Ortiz

Judges Comments
- Really nice work. I loved how you used the GoPro, but think the difference in quality and color made it distracting. I think you probably should've killed it. The nat sequence near the top was nice, but you used it twice, and then we didn't see another sequence like it anywhere. Aand ask yourself who you're doing it for...the viewer or you. It was good though...I was left wanting more....maybe a bigger payoff at the end, but such is the nature of deadlines. - Very well shot. Excellent effort for a deadline entry. I appreciate that you took the time to set up the event and build the anticipation that made me invested in "what happens next". Didn't need the GoPro shots, especially the low angle singing shot. It wasn't a powerful moment and visually looked very different than your other video because of the digital gain. It felt like you had plenty of other shots on your ENG camera to replace that with and it felt shoehorned in. There was also a nat sequence off the top that you used twice. That said, good use of tight shots in this story. Keep using those.   - The fact this was a deadline piece is impressive. Great job on it. Loved the hustle of getting wide shots from above the crowd and getting the different angles of everyone MICed up. Avoid using the same NAT sequence twice. Also I felt like you didn't need the GoPro video here. The difference in video quality in this beautiful shot piece messed up the flow for me. The GoPro didn't add anything to this story. But very nice work. You should be very proud of this piece.

3rd Place

Chad Nelson

Judges Comments
- Clipped track at 104. Good pacing, great hustle getting the elements. Some of the water nats seemed repetitive....nats with different pitches would've helped that. Otherwise, nice work. - Great tight shots, use of natural light, and depth of field...especially on the water shots. Good job getting nats of the boots in the water. This was probably the most powerful shot in the whole story. It It sounded like you cheated the water nats under a few shots (:00, :06, :19, 1:04). They all sounded like the same rushing water and it didn't fit the closing shot of still water. Good job of staying in the moment and doing active interviews. - Overall great piece. Agreed, the NATS in this package seemed the same in some parts and didn't match what I was seeing at times. When the van was coming through the water, I didn't hear NATS here and should've. Also, the sound of rushing water when we are seeing still water didn't work. Interviews were awesome and great sequencing with those

Honorable Mention

Joe Wagener

Judges Comments
- Looks like you used shutter for the opening shot and it works well with the track talking about movement. You have a stoic Sgt. standing perfectly still with lots of motion around him. I didn't think the dissolve worked there. You had a clean edit point and the shot to complete the sequence. It just wasn't needed. Be careful of distractions in your framing. The plastic on the flowers covered the man's face at :20 and it was distracting. A little more height on the tripod and perhaps some more depth of field would've helped. I found the long dissolve with the blowing card at :32 to be really messy. I'm watching trying to figure out what to look at and there's text to read, a pan, two shots blending into each other, etc. I think a traditional sequence would've worked much better there. Good job of backing off at 1:02 and getting the sound in a very natural way. It felt authentic. I liked what you were trying to do at the end with bookending the story. I felt the pacing was off a little bit. By the time the dissolve finished, the track/story was already over. Overall...good sound, shooting. - Great shot at the beginning letting the action come in and out of frame. Liked the framing of the interviews. Nice jod with this piece.

Judges: WGCL