Production Memo

For a blog post this sure was deep. My original idea was to gather many short interviews (almost sound bites) from as many Nassau County residents as possible. A combination of lack of willingness to talk to me and a realization that less may be more in a two minute video piece led me to concentrating on the few who did, and the best things they had to say.

This led to some bites that were great and some that weren't, but the piece was about what any random person who lives in one of the areas affected by potential development and what was on their minds, so I went with what I got. As unpolished as some of the people were, I think in the end what each was trying to say came across in a clear enough manner to distinguish their beliefs.

The most interesting thing was that it really was a distinct divide in every way from person to person, something I would have to deal with in the storytelling. I had to craft the story so that it wasn't just an inconclusive piece, but that it tried to shed as much light on why residents are divided as I could in two minutes. That is where I think the personal nature of each bite plays a large role.

I have worked with hyperlinked blog posts before in the work I do with music blogs, so the concept of that part of the project was not out of the ordinary for me. Crafting a piece that is cohesive with a subject I'm not all too familiar with was the hardest part, both in learning about it and having a drive behind wanting to learn about it.

The hardest part is just pacing, both in workflow and in presentation. You have to pace the planning very well just like the video (and even the post itself) has to be paced.