#JElection Reflection

For me, the entire #JElection experience was a learning and rewarding experience.  It was interesting hearing the political views of both students and community members, for they were not necessarily what I had expected.  Before the project started, I was preparing myself to hear a lot about the economy and the job market, for I assumed this would be the issue on people's minds as they prepared to vote.  From Lehigh students, we did find this overwhelming concern with the economy, specifically directed at student loans and the job market.  However, what was interesting was the overwhelming amount of Bethlehem community members that did not even mention the economy.  For them, social issues took the prominent role in influencing their vote.

One of my favorite videos was probably the first video we shot of Clinton Wolfe in Deja Brew.  The camera angle and the background noise were perhaps not the best, but Wolfe was a very dynamic speaker and had a lot of interesting things to say.  He even gave us his Twitter to tag him in the post so that he, too, could become part of the #JElection conversation.

My other favorite video was Harrison Fenner's interview.  He was the one community member we interviewed who was a Romney supporter and who did not list social issues as his No. 1 priority.  Fenner is in the military, so he provided a unique perspective and gave us insight into which candidate the military would support.  The lighting and the background of this video are good.  However, although everything Fenner says is clear, at times the sound of the cars passing by behind us becomes a little loud.  It would have been better if we'd walked a little further from the street in order to do the interview.  

Overall, I felt more confident videoing this time around than during the scavenger hunt.  Although looking back I can point out improvements I would have made to the videos, I feel that this time I had a better understanding of which shots would have the best lighting and how to frame a person within the shot.  The one think I wish we'd taken more into consideration, however, is sound, for in some of the videos the background noise threatens to be too loud.  Achieving better sound quality and softer background noise is definitely the thing I will focus most on when conducting video interviews in the future.