Junkyard Music Man (view this story)

Details

Category: Feature
Media: Video
Turnaround time: More than a day but less than a week

Description of story

This is an profile of artist Joe Willie Smith who makes musical instruments out of found objects. He mics up the instruments and runs them through a Fender guitar amp. One of his inventions was used in the soundtrack for Alice in Wonderland.

Feedback requested

General thoughts

Gear used in production

Canon 5dmk2
Marantz Audio Recorder
Glidetrack

4 comments - Login to comment

Rep: 444
Eric Seals Oct. 12, 2011, 7:39 a.m. permalink

Hi Pat,


Nice short piece. Well shot and edited with really good sound.  Your piece kept my interest because I wanted to know what sounds the various things he's found and made. It was interesting to read in your story description that one of his inventions was used in the Alice in Wonderland soundtrack? Cool.

A couple things I would have loved to have seen or heard; 

1. That invention. If he still has it or has a duplicate that would have been great to have seen and hear him talking about all that. This brings in an element of his work being recognized on a more national level and let's us know that the scope of his inventions and great sounds are spreading outside of Arizona.  

2. Going out with him as he hunts for that next piece of found objects to turn into some amazing sound.  Follow that process but continue to do it with your nice shooting style and good editing so it doesn't become just a process piece that can often be boring.  Yeah it could add 30 seconds or more to this (not a bad thing) but would make it more complete in my opinion. 

Love your visuals and that you used a slider but didn't overuse it, great self control with that man!! The look and feel from sliders can be nice but overdone. You did it just right.

I'm a big believe in the "say it then show it" and you did this very well.  Love when you showed the red root art installation and the woman talking about it and when she gets into talking about tapping it you immediately cut to the visual of the sign showing that then right to that couple tapping and having fun with it.

Must be nice to always have nice light where you live huh?

Nice job on this!

Eric

 

Rep: 48
Submitter
Pat Shannahan Oct. 12, 2011, 9 a.m. permalink

Thanks Eric. This guy was really cool. He was one of those people who always has something interesting to say. I would have liked to follow him looking for material but I did this story in the summer and it was so hot outside that he wasn't really out looking for stuff. I lucked out that he mics up his instruments and runs them through a Fender amp. It made gathering sound easier. 


I probably should have worked the Alice and Wonderland quote into to package but I started to run out of material to use. I always think I shoot too much but then find I shot barely enough. Do you guys run into that as well? The story ran on our sister station's midday show. They played the video and then had him live in the studio to play one of his instruments and talk. They worked into the live interview the part about one of his instruments being used on the soundtrack for Alice in Wonderland.

Thanks again for checking it out.

Rep: 444
Eric Seals Oct. 12, 2011, 9:35 a.m. permalink

Cool Pat! Totally understand about him not going out looking for material. We just follow what they do or go and if it doesn't happen it just doesn't happen. 


That's great he mics up his instruments and I do remember that detail near the beginning of the piece when he's plugging into his Fender.  

I think I shoot to much b-roll as well and tend to really over shoot things to death but I so love looking for those moments/ visuals and probing with questions to my subject to give me other ideas for b-roll.  Plus I always have that little voice of a picture editor telling me when I started doing video storytelling"You can never have enough b-roll" 
I just finished a piece on a strongman breaking stereotypes and have 128 gigs worth of audio and video.  Torture but gonna be fun as hell diving into the edit.  

You're shooting and style is really nice Pat and I just know when you are editing it's fun now isn't it??  The better we get at this the more we look forward to sitting down and putting our puzzle together.

Keep up the good work man!

Eric



Rep: 91
Peter Huoppi Oct. 12, 2011, 12:40 p.m. permalink

I love everything about this.

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