Video story project

Successful story topics: examples and techniques

I.

Localizing a national problem

A. Use ordinary people around you to report heavily covered national stories.
B. Big national incidents impact everybody. Economy meltdown, homegrown terrorism,
Ebola virus, or general elections. News is around you. Crystallize the incident into one
case.
C. In this example, Detroit Free Press story Carrier of the Economy, presents the
economic meltdown in 2008 through the experience of a postman. He is witness to the
ordeal of ordinary people via the types of mail he delivers such as bank notices.
D. Technically, note that simple natural sounds such as footsteps are used effectively. Also,
this is a simple field work of three sequence. But includes diverse camera shots.
Underscores the importance of planning and script (storyboard).
E. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mFcGJyUxJk

II.

Humanize large issues

A. You can tell intriguing stories about dull subjects such as crime statistics, relationships
and events by humanizing the topic.
B. How to humanize a story is not only about finding a right person but also to find out his
or her challenge/conflict and resolution. Statistics are numbers without faces. But
challenges are unique to each individual. Once you identify the challenge and get into
narration, your story is half done.
C. Left behind, San Jose Mercury news The video avoids interviews, narration or any
individual character development, and is replaced instead by superimposed text data from
reports by the World Bank, UNESCO and SPARC, an Indian non-profit. - See more at:
http://kobreguide.com/left_behind/#sthash.9zWRSFl0.dpuf
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2008/leftbehind/
D. You may do a humanize story for your video project and expand the topic for a print
feature story. For example, see how this project Torn apart dealt with the immigration
deportation drive by the federal government.
http://www.mercurynews.com/torn-apart

III.

Contests & Sports

A Competitions has natural built in story arcs
E. Conflict is obvious. Easy to find narratives.
F. In this example, video files are edited and rearranged according to the script structure.
Also, notice how editing mixed different contents.
-Mixed still & video
-Mixed interview & action
-Mixed natural sound & music
G. https://vimeo.com/9865278

IV.

Changing a life
A. A persons transformation is a popular topic of video news stories.
B. Journey style structure.
C. Getting the natural narrative is the key to success.
D. Allan P. Haber was once a heroin dealer and spent more than a decade in and out of prisons
including Sing Sing and Rikers Island. Now he is a successful defense lawyer in New York.

E. http://www.nytimes.com/video/nyregion/100000003969339/a-former-heroin-dealerssecond-chance.html

V.

Local attraction
A. Multimedia are built for introducing a local attraction.
B. Approach it with humor. Much easier to make others laugh with a photo or video than
with words
C. Try to blend, human stories and statistics.
D. Los Angeles Times L.A. scale is worth its weight in dimes
http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-scale-ss-htmlstory.html

V. Past

A. Manage a long time period with digital methods. Try to find newsworthiness in the
past.
B. Mix them with interviews, graphics, archival footage makes them manageable.
C. Here, you make most of video editing skills. Gather the materials and edit them, you
can take audience back in time. Think of the great story book chapters.
A Video: mix A roll and B roll. Photos: mix new and old. Audio: mix music, narration
and interviews
H. Example story:
For your own good, Tampa Bay Times.
This story used extreme case of mixing old and new images.
http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/for-their-own-good-a-stpetersburg-times-special-report-on-child-abuse-at/992939
Take care, Media Storm
http://mediastorm.com/training/take-care

Example of a story website

https://uwmadisonboxing.wordpress.com/the-fight

This is a very complicated work by a University of Wisconsin senior.

This is about the return of boxing team to the school.
Mixed the news, profile of the team, safety information and history.