Feature Story Experience

Feature Story Explanation

My concept for this video was to show how studying in another country would effect the students schooling, and how it made them feel to be apart of this program. I really wanted to show how fun it could be and how much of a wonderful experience it is to study somewhere other than America. Reagan had been studying Japanese for a while, and, when she heard about this program, she had decided that she wanted to study abroad and enhance her language skills. 

When we were given this assignment, we were told that we needed to create a narrative lead. I hadn't ever really done a narrative lead before, so I had to watch a couple videos to truly understand how to create and use a narrative lead in my interview. When I figured out how to use this lead, I was excited to see how it fit the story. The story was impacted greatly by this lead, I believe. It gave a sort of background that you can't really get from just an interview. I believe that is set a sort of comfort in understanding what the video was about before the interview started, instead of just trying to infer what the interviewee was talking about.

Though, we were asked to have to interviews in this video and compile them. I only got to one, I didn't have enough time to shoot another interview. Our crazy schedules were in the way and I just didn't have the time. Though, I believe that the video is still well done without the second interview.

The experience that I had with putting this together was pretty simple. I had asked her right when I was told about the assignment if it was alright that I had chosen her study abroad experience for it. She said yes immediately. So, I had written about twenty questions, most were asking about where she lived in Japan and how she felt there, all very basic questions, but very important to the story as well. I created my script a bit after I interviewed Reagan. It came to me very quickly of how I could move this story along, only after I had studied how to create a narrative lead, but I had learned quickly. I used the answers she had given me of questions I couldn't use in the video and tried to compile them into a lead that would give the audience a sense of knowing when they watched the video, so they wouldn't be confused of what was going on in the interview while it was going on.

Writing my voiceover was very simple, I tired to use what I could to move the story along more smoothly, though there isn't much voiceovers. I felt that the story didn't need anymore, it was just as good without it, and it would be a bit much if I added more. Also, we had to keep the video from a minute to a minute and thirty seconds long, so I didn't have a lot of room to add anything extra.

Shooting the video was a bit troubling for me. At first, I had problems with the sound. Then, I had troubles with the lighting, and the white-balance wouldn't work. Of course, after the third try at interviewing Reagan, I finally got it right. Though, I had to move to a teacher's classroom, which made the background seem a little out of place, but I didn't really have anywhere to go, so I just used what I could and attempted to make the most of it.

I really enjoyed the lighting in my third interview and the way it just turned out. I believe that I used my materials incredibly well, for what little I had to work with. As well as creating a story that was just interesting, in my opinion. It's not something that everyone can get to experience and just watching the video would create a sort of joy, either with wanting to go and experience it as well, or just to understand the process and how certain things flowed in the schooling system in another country.

Written Feature Story

New scents are flowing in the air. New sights have yet to be discovered. Both children and adults walk down a busy sidewalk, attempting to reach their destination before night comes and the light bulbs in tall poles slowly flicker on. Red, orange, and yellow catch people's eyes as they quickly walk down the street. People don’t know where they are going, but that’s what’s fun about it, isn’t it?

This is what Reagan Boyer had felt when she visited Japan in 2014. She was captivated by the lights and the sounds that surrounded her. Though, the scenery was beautiful and the food was perfect, she was there for an entirely different reason.

Reagan had been studying abroad for a while now, she first went to South Africa in 2012, where she learned about the people who lived there and their culture. Before then, Reagan had never really studied anywhere else other than America.

“I had been studying Japanese for a little while, and my family really supported me when I told them I wanted to go,” Reagan stated during an interview about her experience. When asked about how she responded to being so far away from the states, she said “This was the first time I had ever traveled without my parents so far away, so, I was a little nervous at first, but my host family was really welcoming. So, it was nice.”

Soon after she spoke of how easy it was to get into the groove of schooling in another country. “The schooling that I had was more centered towards me, so it was not too different.” She said, “But, I mean, I only studied Japanese, so instead of all my classes, I had eight hours of Japanese study a day. So, that was different.”

Though she was in Japan specifically for learning Japanese, she did have time to explore after school. She said that instead of going home and working on whatever they needed to have done for the next day she and her other classmates went to “arcades.”

“We could go to music parks really, we just kind of had fun,” Though she was in a new country and in a place she had never been before, she still spoke fondly of her time in Japan. Whether it was about the food, or the shops, Reagan had no ill words to speak about her time there. She soon plans to return to Japan in 2017.