Your Voice: Part 2: I Dont Like to Say It, But All Trails Go to Bars.
[A Note from Dino: We find this post in the blog started by Erik. It is a fascinating look at Central Wisconsin from the point of view of a successful photo journalist (though that might not be the right job title). His blog is open, and amazingly self-critical of his work and the subjects he looks at. I really enjoy getting a behind the scenes look at what this fascinating job is all about. Thanks Erik. Thanks to you all.]
Name: The Culture of Snowmobiling in Wisconsin
Air Date: 2/4/08
Reporter: Mikel Lauber
The Story - Searching our archives for snowmobile deaths related to alcohol, Mikel was able to uncover a local man that tragically lost his life on the trails and his last stop was a bar. Chad Laffin was a a new husband, soon to be new father, and outdoor sporting enthusiast. We were fortunate enough that one of his best friends in outdoor sports was Randy Curtis, who is a member of a snowmobile club and gives talks on the dangerous effects of alcohol on the trails.
Erik’s Notes - Curtis is one hell of a spokesman for snowmobiling and other off roading sports. He’s eloquent while still being conversational, and moreover he is completely honest when he speaks. People like Curtis are a great reminder that a majority of snowmobilers are responsible enthusiasts, and he was great to talk with.
The personal story of Chad Laffin is heartbreaking. Throughout most of my life I used to see people that died in situations like this as old people, people that had experienced more of life than me. Chad is making me realize more and more every day that these are kids. This man saw less of life than I did and now he will never see more. And all because of a poor decision on night to mix two of his favorite hobbies.
My heart truly goes out to his wife, who spoke to us over the phone, but did not want to go on camera. Even two years later she still bears the cross that her husband left for her. Curtis is dead on that people just don’t think of the friends and family they leave at home when they put their lives in danger like this. How anyone could be against legislation that works to deter people from this type of activity is beyond me.
The denial that we got over this was almost sad as well. We got a call from a relative of Chad’s that screamed at us about he was not intoxicated when this happened. She refused to believe Mikel when he told her it was on the DNR web-site and that the Marathon County Corner confirmed that to him. She yelled at us for attacking the culture and other such things. The media is often given a bad rap for the ol’ saying “Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.” But many people that gave the station feedback on these pieces wouldn’t let the truth get in the way of them being rational.
This is my second favorite piece in the series.
Commentary - 0:00 - Bad move, Erik. I should have started with video rather than just the guy talking. In a controlled environment, like a cinema, you can start raw and open with a person talking to the camera because you know exactly how it will be seen. But on the news this is just one of many stories that gets mixed into the broadcast. 0:00 - Further, I really like this interview shot. If there would’ve been a way to get that glare off of his glasses, it would’ve been perfect. But we were interviewing him in his garage. Windows are the bane of any photographer’s work, so I needed to frame them out. Sadly this meant he needed to be facing one. That’s photojournalism for ya. 0:17 - I am holding the camera on the side of the snowmobile while riding up top. Thankfully Mikel is still driving here. This shot was pretty neat, but it put snow on the lens quickly. 0:21 - I really like sloppy focus when it means something. Random rack focuses can do anything from portray a state of mind (in this case intoxication) to reminding the viewers they are watching something that was shot, not seeing real life. It’s very handy. Unfortunately not everyone at the station agrees with me and I have been forced to remove it from some of my packages. Luckily Sue and Mikel gave me the freedom to do what I wanted. 0:42 - I remember when I first started at the station I would just lay out a still image and leave it at that. I was afraid that the Ken Burns effect would be too “distracting” or not “news enough.” Then one day I asked Alison if I could do it because I really wanted to for some story. She told me that I really should and that the only reason no one did at the station is because no one knew how! I use the Ken Burns effect very often in this package. 1:02 - There’s that graphic again. I really do not like the look of the official station graphics. In the ride along piece I started doing my own. 1:27 - That’s an ATV rider, not a snowmobiler. I just thought I should point that out because another thing I learned was that there is some bad blood between snowmobilers and ATVers for a variety of reasons. 1:39 - This is to separate sound bites from the same guy, you can tell because when he starts talking we’re in a medium close-up and when we come back to him at 1:42 it’s a medium shot. Some people will edit in a quick white flash or something when they put two sound bites together, but I prefer to cover the jump cut with some b roll. 1:53 - I’d seen this type of cut away shot for interview on CBS 5 out of Green Bay. Since I had time I decided to grab it. I’m still a little iffy on this shot. I think it works well here, but I don’t think I’ve used it since. 2:26 - This change over to black and white was very serendipitous, in that the dissolve makes it look like the image is jumping a little bit. A hiccup in the video. This has to do with the way Avid Newscutter does key framing and then how it reacts when one splits up a clip on the time line after doing so. That’s a lot of technical jargon that basically means: originally I just wanted it to go to black and white, but I ended up getting that cool hiccup when Avid wasn’t like Final Cut Pro, which is what I’m used to cutting on. I like it quite a bit.
Closing - This is a powerful piece and Curtis has a great line with: “Who’s gotta pay?” A lot of people told us that this is a “touchy subject” and we were reminded of a amount of money that tourism brings in via snowmobiling. But Curtis brings up a great point, someone has to pay. Will it be a loss of money at a business, or will it be the loss of life by a family?
erik said:
Thanks for the front page, feature Dino. I feel all grows up now :D
And photojournalist is indeed my prefered “job title.” But we’re called photographers, videographers, cameramen and everything in between. I don’t get too caught up in semantics.
March 19th, 2008 at 3:30 pm #
Dino Corvino said:
I did not want to call a massage therapist a massuesse.
As they are two different things, and thought maybe you were as well.
March 19th, 2008 at 4:10 pm #