Some stories just aren’t “made for TV” but that doesn’t mean they’re not worth telling. Take the clergy sex abuse scandal still rocking the Catholic Church. If you can get someone on camera for an interview, you’re doing well. B-roll is usually limited to generic shots of churches and a few still photos.
This story has all of those predictable elements, but reporter Jeremy Rogalski of KHOU-TV in Houston found a couple of additional ways to make a document-heavy investigation visually interesting.
Sioux City Priest from Jennifer Cobb on Vimeo.
Notice how the story includes multiple steps in the reporting process and makes them visually interesting. Shooting the process of finding newspaper clips on microfilm turned static text into engaging video. Putting a mic on the reporter and shooting video while he read through legal documents gave viewers the sense that they were in on the discovery of a key fact in the case. Using on-screen text over a driving shot kept the story moving and flowed seamlessly into the on-camera shot while driving.
Several of these techniques echo what journalists have been doing for a while on podcasts like Reveal or the original Serial. They record all the time, not just when they’re doing an interview but when they’re setting up and even when they’re driving to the location. They let the listener in on the process of reporting the story, which helps to build in some drama but also reinforces the credibility of what they find.
Have you done anything along these lines? Let us know in the comments. We’d love to share your success stories.
