I logged onto the NYTimes to check out what seemed like an interesting business video story : Marvin Windows and Doors of Warroad, MN has not laid off or fired a single employee despite the economic downturn.
Wow, how do they do it?
Watch it for yourself. It’s short
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/09/24/business/100000001071988/getting-by-usa.html
The visual storytelling starts off right, moving from the field to the road to the signs (lots and lots of signs in this video) to the factory to the empty trucks (nice shot to make the point of slow times) to wood piles.
But once the story gets inside the factory, it stops making sense visually. This is classic B roll shooting, that is, random visuals of windows in every stage of construction haphazardly layered over interview sound bites. It visually bounces along with no order or sense of the process, starting with shots of raw wood, then finished windows, then a machine, then a finished window being wrapped, then another window in the early stages of being constructed. Result=confusion.
This story would have made more sense visually if they tracked a single window through the entire process, that is, creating a sequence with a beginning, middle and end that would be the story of how a window is made. Not a “how to” but rather a sequence that tells the story of a window being constructed. We all look out the window, wouldn’t it be cool to see how they make them?
If they couldn’t get a single window, then a sequence of different windows in each stage of production would have worked also. Perhaps raw wood to machined wood to fabrication into the shape of a frame to the glass being inserted to the inspection to the window being wrapped in plastic and then being loaded onto a truck. Again, sequence with a beginning, middle and end.
There are wide and medium shots but they’re all made from the same position (frame a shot, then zoom in for a closeup), which gives them a visual redundancy. Remember, move the camera position at least 30 degrees between each shot. I’d have loved to see some extreme closeups on faces (to be visually introduced to some of these employees) and see extreme closeups on hands (to experience what they’re doing.)
It’s a business story and numbers are important to business but we don’t have to see people reciting numbers while they’re onscreen. In the first interview with the company president she delivers a ton of numbers. That’s the narrators job or better still, the perfect place for a graphic. Numbers are easier to comprehend when we see them represented rather than when we have to listen to someone speaking them. Video is better at delivering emotion than it is in delivering numbers.
I liked the idea of showing employee Travis Kelly at his second job, if that is indeed Travis in the B roll. We have a furtive, long shot of some people going into the store while someone says something really interesting. ” When you’ve been here and you’ve seen the good times, you want to get back to the good times as soon as possible.” and then we see Travis Kelly on camera while he recites more numbers (his hours at both jobs). Hmmm, would have loved to see Travis working at Marvin and working at the grocery store. Show, don’t tell.
The story ends on Susan Marvin, the president of the company, who tells us the country is not experiencing an economic recovery, then delivers a great question: we can try to sustain the business as is and try to hold on or we can do something about it and try to grow and be more prosperous?
Great question! I might learn something here.
What is she going to choose to do? How is she going to grow and be more prosperous?
We never find out!
The video cuts to another shot of a sign, this time Marvin in big letters on the side of a trcuk as it leaves the factory.
Bummer. So the reflection, that is, what I can learn for my own life ( stay put or try to grow) is never delivered.
Arghhh.
