Convergence feedback

This Friday, my multimedia project went out on our first field reporting experience for our final project. We drove 70 miles away to a private deer hunting reserve, and learned a lot. The only reason we were able to report on our topic, deer hunting, with so many different pieces of equipment was because of the amount of time we spent practicing at the beginning of the semester. Here is some of the feedback I received on our so-called 'practice' assignments and how my team applied it this weekend:

Audio

• Obtaining natural sound of activity related to the topic: The first audio story I compiled didn't have as much nat sound as it could have, so I paid extra attention to details we could record when on the reserve. One piece of nat sound I'm happy we obtained was the setup of a rifle, and the actual rifle being shot.
• Continue clear voicing and use descriptive narration: This will come into play when compiling the story, but my group will make sure we use descriptive narration, especially when we create an audio-visual slideshow describing what was on the premises. 

Video

• Watching out for unintentional camera movement: We used a tripod at all times and Margaret, my team member who did a lot of the video recording, kept the tripod in between her legs to keep it balanced. 
• Apply the "visual cha cha" by getting close-up shots: While navigating the hunting reserve, we tried to film detail shots of the various equipment, plants the deer eat and clothing worn. 
• Telling sources not to look directly into the camera: We always had the interviewer off to the side of the camera and another student filming, so the interview was authentic and the source was not staring into the video camera's lens.  

Photo

• Use aperture settings to assure the photos are well-exposed: I made sure the ISO, shutter speed and aperture were all at good settings manually by taking some practice photo and ensuring the best settings for each photo. 
• Keep an eye on what's behind the person in the frame, and don't cut off people's bodies: In my previous photo assignments, the edges of people's arms or feet would be cut off because of how I framed the photo. This weekend, I made sure that wasn't done by securing the full frame in the photo and taking a look at the context so nothing distracting was in the background.