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Discussions on the Thread "Format of general travel pieces"

pnoeric

Thread : Format of general travel pieces

Posted on Mar 08, 2010 at 05:07 pm

Hey, I'm getting into travel VJ work, and I'm a little confused. I love Michael's approach of focusing on a person and telling a 3-5 min story... but if I'm hired to provide five 3-5 minute pieces about a city... I need help:

1. Figuring out exactly WHAT those 3 to 5 videos are... I can guess-- for example, I think my hometown of L.A. would be covered well with five short videos: "neighborhoods/city flavor," "beaches/surfing," "celebrities/beverly hills," "getting the l.a. lifestyle" (shopping/fitness/unique ways to chill in L.A.) and "sights to not miss." but my question is, are those good topics? is that the way to approach it?

2. more importantly, do I try to work the "person" angle into each one? for example, I could find a surf instructor giving lessons for the beach/surf video. but is that the whole video? (I feel like I'm leaving a lot out, then...) ...or do I start the video with some general overview of different beaches/the beach "lifestyle," then tell the surf-instructor story? does the surf-instructory story go first, since it's more interesting, and then after that I tack on another minute of "oh, and here's a quick look at the other beaches in l.a..."?

thanks for any thoughts on this!

best
Eric

pnoeric

pnoeric
Friday May 14, 2010 at 9:20 pm

thanks a bunch for the reply, Kelly... I see what you mean now, about having a character with their story who can also tell the "bigger" story (in this case, about the city of l.a.)... I have an idea that I think would work great for this... let me see what I can do :-)

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Kelly

Kelly
Tuesday Mar 30, 2010 at 5:55 pm

A great example of telling a story through a character's eyes is Travel Channel's TV series
"No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain".
Check it out.

Here's a short video link on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsSiA-JHm0U

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Kelly

Kelly
Tuesday Mar 30, 2010 at 5:51 pm

Hi Eric, The best videos always have a great character that reveals the larger context of the story. For example, instead of a general story about the history of Central Park in NYC, why not have a gregarious pedi-cab driver take you through and tell you it's history while you shoot...much more memorable than a video essay with voiceover. With your surf instructor example, you'd use him/her to also tell you about Beaches and Beach LIfestyle, which he/she is certain to know about. Since you are from LA, you could also be the character. Get a tripod and put yourself into the piece. As far as how to break down each story to a minute, stick to one subject. For example, 1 minute on surf instruction, 1 minute on beaches in LA, 1 minute on unique ways to chill in LA. Don't try to put too much into one piece. Hope this helps!

Kelly
NYVS Team

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pnoeric

pnoeric
Tuesday Mar 9, 2010 at 1:00 pm

on a related note, I was watching some of these travel academy alum videos: http://www.travelchannelacademy.com/Academy/Alumni_Portfolio

I like the city overviews a lot, but am intrigued by the idea of merging the two formats -- a city overview plus a personal story intermixed. would this work? has it been done? can I see what that might be like?

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