Crime victims, victimized again.

Crime victims, victimized again. (view this story)

Details

Category: News
Media: Video
Turnaround time: More than a week but less than a month

Description of story

Over $4 million in restitution payments is owed to victims of crime in Detroit but it sits in a bank not collecting interests as the prosecutors office and the Wayne County Clerks office point fingers at each other. Many owed they money can easily be found as a reporter and I set out to find people, tell them about the money they had coming and to shine a light on this problem.

Feedback requested

1st of a kind for me being use to doing slice of life video features. Wanted a new challenge to try. Collaborated with reporter helped in story telling, writing script & narration. Kind of "broadcast" feel but I tried putting my style into it.

Gear used in production

Panasonic hvx200
Sennheiser lavs, shotgun
Mac
FCP

2 comments - Login to comment

Rep: 15

Kathy Strauss Nov. 2, 2010, 9:23 a.m. permalink

Eric -- this definitely is a departure from your usual fare. In general I kind of cringe when I see reporter stand-ups but your storytelling style comes through here in spite of that. I think sticking more to the first character, Irene, could have added more depth. You can read the grief on her face in that opening scene, and wonder how a person survives such an attack. I wasn't so interested in all the other folks the reporter visited with -- maybe those could have been broken down into much shorter clips -- with the central character, Irene, driving the story. And the question still remains -- why don't these people get their payments? Does no one have an explanation?
Thanks for trying out a new style. You're inspiring, as usual!

Rep: 444

Submitter

Eric Seals Nov. 2, 2010, 11:03 a.m. permalink

Thanks for checking it out Kathy and the comments :-)

Yes you're right, a total departure from what I'm use to doing...took me way out of my comfort zone but that's a good thing and was a good challenge for me.

Jim and I were the newspapers guinea pigs on this video for collaboration after an awesome two day workshop with Boyd and Jonathan from KARE in Minneapolis in early September.

We got as much out of Irene as we could in two days and it just couldn't be more in depth as Jim and I wanted. At the same time we felt showing Jim at that apartment complex finding people who are owed money was an easy thing to do even when the "city officials" said they couldn't find people on the list.

I too cringe with reporter stand ups but in this case it was very short and needed because the city clerk who we talked with would not go on camera (or audio) and I really had no other way to do. Thought about doing narration of him but there was nothing (b-roll) I could use to cover that with plus the viewers needed to know we tried talking with the clerk.

You're right...It did leave the question kind of unanswered but that's because the prosecutor and clerk pointed the fingers at each other, typical huh?? No one wants to take responsibility for the non payment of restitution.

The good that came out of this was public officials were called onto the carpet for this and the video and print story that went with it lit a fire under peoples asses to get this problem solved. We've been doing follow ups.

Learned a hell of a lot working on this for three weeks with the reporter and the whole collaborative process was very interesting.