Darcy and Rebecca's Scavenger Hunt Reflection

The video I took of Leon Washington, the Dean of Admissions, speaking about his views on the importance of a liberal arts education was probably my favorite. He was an incredibly interesting subject and was able to provide a concise, yet complete opinion about the question. I would consider him an expert on selling a liberal arts education so I think this video would be one of interest to many people. Although there was a bit of a shadow on his face I think I could edited it out without too much difficulty if necessary.

This video of Allie Barrone speaking about the NYT no longer providing students with free subscriptions was my least favorite. The loud music in the background was kind of distracting and I held the camera too close to her face.


After looking through the videos Rebecca and I took as well as those of the rest of the class I learned the importance of selecting a charismatic and knowledgeable subject. The videos were all much more interesting when the subject didn't look uncomfortable or unsure of what to say. I do think there is something to be said for not getting too close to the subjects face, making sure the lighting is good and there isn't tons of background noise but all in all I would rather be interested in the information I am hearing than have a video with impeccable quality. I was a bit late to pick up on the, "shoot videos horizontally" memo but I can now very easily see that this helps include some of the background as well as provide some distance from the subjects face.

I didn't really think much about interviewing during this assignment. Rebecca and I were more concerned about getting the question answered and posted quickly. Although I am not great at public speaking, I hope that if I were conducting a more complete interview I would be able to come up with follow-up questions. Especially for the videos that had time requirements, it may have helped my subjects if I chimed in with follow-up questions to keep them on the right track or spark new ideas.

After doing this assignment, I truly do not see any appeal to using the Zi8. Not only is quality inferior to my iPhone, but if I wanted to download the videos onto my computer and do some editing, I could download from my iPhone more easily than I could from the Zi8. Furthermore, in our world today, people like instantaneous information. Having the ability to film and event or speech and post it within seconds is incredible and I do believe it will become the norm for all news media.