Signing Day Process

After having an acquaintance sign to the University of Oklahoma to play baseball, I decided I wanted to learn more about it. I didn’t necessarily want to make this a featured story; I wanted to make the story about the signing process in general.

At first, my partner and I planned to interview several different people who have experienced the endorsement process. That obviously didn’t go as planned and we only ended up with two interviews. Our other planned subjects had busy schedules and they weren’t at all available. It was disappointing and could have added to our story, but rolling with the punches is a part of being a journalist.

The biggest issue we faced was coming up with the story idea itself. Not much was happening in my school that week, so I really had to get creative. Another issue my partner and I faced was finding quality b-roll opportunities. We couldn’t revive any of the baseball footage we had of Austin last year, so we basically started from scratch.

Our first interview went pretty mediocre. Our subject was Austin Hansen at the time, and it was a struggle to get him to open up. He’s not a huge fan of fame so it was obvious that he’s not comfortable on camera. I tried to edit to make it seem like he was comfortable, but if you look closely
you’ll see that he looks down and he slurs his words.

The second subject was the school counselor Mrs. Saliva, and she wasn’t at all shy. Every question I asked she answered clearly and thoroughly, (that’s a journalists dream by the way). I’m going to be completely honest and say that I wasn’t at all prepared for this interview. Mrs. Saliva is a busy woman so I had to get an interview with her when she had the time. After waiting a few days for a response back, she finally contacted me at the most inconvenient time.

Overall, I feel like my editing was top notch. I engrained sequencing and all the components of storytelling into this package. I have a beginning, middle, and end, but I’m lacking a conflict. I think the story turned out well without one, so I’m going to leave the final product the way it is.