Pre-Video Assignment, Chen

 

 Good Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oQzaS6-Z3I&ab_channel=GreatBigStory

This short documentary is a profile on Cecilia Chiang, who is a pioneer of a Chinese cuisine in America. She introduced the idea of Chinese food in this country by starting her own restaurant and cooking in California, and the documentary provides some of her experiences and current reflections on being a pioneer. I think the beginning cut is really a good hook; it provides a diversity of these detail and medium shots, which I think really draws the audience's interest into who Cecilia might be and what food she's cooking. The audio introduction is straightforward, but it's a significant statement that makes a perfect setup for what the rest of the documentary is about: "My name is Cecilia Chiang, people say that I brought Chinese food to America." I think the diversity of angles in which they captured the food she's cooking was well done, there's this overhead angle I really like, and also these detail and side photos. Even the old photos that the video used from Cecilia's past were video recorded with a backdrop (not digitally edited into the video), which I felt brought a really authentic sense of history. Lastly, I think the interview shot with her and her friend Alice Waters was well framed with the both of them (neither looked miniscule as if they were falling down the frame, and the framing felt comfortable). 

Bad Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuSJPf94GWc&t=22s&ab_channel=BusinessInsider

This video is from Business Insider, and even though I really enjoy these videos from their channel, I thought there were some things in this particular video that were really lacking from a visual and audio standpoint. First, they chose not to have a narrator and instead used text to open up the video; there's barely a hook as a result, and I believe it would've been much nicer to open up with someone narrating "Welcome to Cook Out." They reused the same shot of someone holding up a cup to the restaurant in the backdrop multiple times, so there was a lack of diverse shots. All the angles and framing were alright, but not great (an example of this is when they're in the car, and you see part of a body, and part of the milkshake), and the lighting they chose to record in was not ideal. There wasn't much of a story besides a straight review, and I thought that visually, they failed to keep the attention of the audience because of the lack of diverse shots and sequences.