Adam,
Great idea for a story. I'm jealous. I wish I had started something like this ten years ago. We so rarely follow our subjects to see what happens to them. There are those great 'Seven Up' movies that have done that so brilliantly.

I liked how you set up the story with the interview with the reporter - it really drew me into what was going to happen.

Though personally I would have started the whole video with the kid reacting to your question about growing up and turning 30 - wonderful video.

But after a while it all lost steam for me. The three people were nice, decent, ok interviews, but it all felt sort of pointless. Their stories didn't take me anywhere. I had no context for how their lives compared to the rest of the class - what kind of school was it - economically, academically.

Should I assume their stories were typical? I wanted to know about everyone else and why you couldn't find them. I wanted to be led somewhere interesting.

The great Ira Glass talks about stories needing reflection and a reason to be told. He explains it better than that of course (you've probably seen the Youtube interviews with him where he talks about story).  At the end I didn't feel that nice, oh, this is why I watched for seven minutes feeling.

I would have preferred a structure that bounced back to the writer - maybe hear from the grown students and then have her reflect on the story rather than separating them.

While I'm not a numbers guy in video by any means I also think this story needed more context - what makes this school story worthy.

You asked if we wondered what the point was of the story...i sort of do i guess. And I wonder what YOU thought the point was? What were you trying to say here?

Hey Adam, what was the name of the workshop that you did at Poynter? Was it more for writers but you still got something out of it or was it tailored to visual folks.  

Thanks for that info.