Thread: 2 Year old reading

Well spotted on the 2:17. It wasn't auto exposure, it was me adjusting the iris because I noticed zebras on the screen were increasing a bit. I haven't ever used auto anything on my camera, perhaps I should give it a go some day, I don't know if I'm a bit manual mode fixated.

I recorded the sound with a Sennheiser ME66/K6 direct into the camera, which you can see at 3:12. I also used the zoom as a backup but it wasn't needed. I didn't tweak the sound except for a bit of volume balance.

Adhoq,
Although she is a very bright kid, she is still a 2 year old and it took us hours to get her to "perform" for the camera. So I don't have as much other footage as I would like but I am dealing with the long clips right now. I think you must be stood over my shoulder because I'm doing exactly as you suggested.

Cheers guys

For me, the video was counter-productive. The last 30 seconds would have sold the concept to me. The first 3 minutes seemed like a child identifying random words but not understanding their meaning. Which is what one would expect from a two year old child. In my opinion, they made her look like a circus act, "come see the amazing girl read words". If the video had shown a wider benefit, i.e. greater awareness and cognitive ability, it would have had a more profound impact. Personally, I would have highlighted her interaction with her surroundings, people, and just as importantly, other children. Reading surely isn't the aim here, it's improved awareness.

I take your point Marc, Your suggestion goes against the brief that I had with the context of the website it will be posted on. The version I'm doing now does show a little more of her interaction and awareness. Interesting points about making her look like a performing circus act, I did try and show the human or more normal side of her as well to try an prevent that, obviously not enough for you.

Thanks Marc.

Originally Posted by hadoq

Why wouldn't you try keeping the reading audio, but mixing the reading sound track along with scenes of the girl playing with her parents, then back to the reading, back and forth reading/play,..

Errmmmmm..... already suggested and taken on board?

Originally Posted by Marc Peters

The first 3 minutes seemed like a child identifying random words but not understanding their meaning. Which is what one would expect from a two year old child. In my opinion, they made her look like a circus act, "come see the amazing girl read words". If the video had shown a wider benefit, i.e. greater awareness and cognitive ability, it would have had a more profound impact.

I think, Marc, you've identified why I felt so uncomfortable watching the video.I'm sure this isn't levelling any criticism at Midnight for the content. This was clearly the client's brief and the client is, perhaps, a little misguided in their assumptions about what is going on here.

As the parent of bot a six year old who amazes me with how much she's already forgotten and has to re-learn, and a 23 year old who in promary school suffered the not uncommon problem of being able fluently to read material at a level far too great for him to comprehend, I can both of these as potential "issues" with this scheme.

Is there a way I could have made this without it looking so circus performer but still showing her reading ability.

Having met the parents, I found that they are not the sort to push the child for there own gratitude. The reason the shoot took so long was because they would not try and make her do it, we had to wait until she wanted to do it. They are proud of her ability and strong believers in giving children a good start in life, which is why they are setting up the website, not to promote a particular product or system but as a place to raise awareness of a child's ability to learn to read at the same time and as naturally as learning to talk.

You bring out an interesting point I had the "chance" to experience as a photographer (amateur that is, but I did some "retributive" work as well). the general public being uneducated, or rather, "miseducated" about the visual arts.
This, to my experience at least, can only be solved beforehand by explaining to the customers how things work, how long it'll take and what you will need.
then, listen to what they have in mind, visualise, and explain to them what will and what won't be possible, and the specific difficulties of the various ideas they have.

People think they know what they want, but without knowing how to do it, they usually don't really know how it'll look like. The clip in itself is not THAT bad, au contraire, it's pretty nice overall. That being said, in case of a disagreement on the "creative" side of things, I feel the artist should have the last word over the customer, because the customer is not usually educated properly to know what does and what doesn't work.

Of course, ideally, it should be a common work.

I've been in discussion with a group of hip hop dancers, they want me to make a vid for their social club, so they showed me some clips for me to see what they're after, I gave em some ideas, and luckily enough, they have someone who can draw, so we'll work together on a storyboard. What I mean is, and I'm sure you get mu point here, is that they know what they want to show, but you know better than them about how to actually show what they want. Therefore, rather than composing with uneffective scenes (I know the word is hard, but here are my limitations concerning english language), I think it's better to explain to them why having this shot might not be the best idea.

In the end of the day, you want to keep as much control as you can because when you work gets out, if it's not 100% up to your highest quality standards, it'll not make you good publicity (I'm assuming you're a pro here). So it's a matter of balance, I think. But one shouldn't be afraid to turn a job down if it turns out the job will not be at the best possible quality.

In this situation I was given full creative control with the understanding that they could have anything removed if they didn't like it. The only thing they specifically asked for was to show that she could read long passages of text and that she wasn't just picking random words without any understanding.

As I'm just starting out in this business I do realise that this is a weak point for me as over this past year I've been concentrating on improving my technical camera skills etc. But this is an important point possibly more important than the technical side of things. We are creating a piece of communication and should take responsibility for that communication, as it usually has our name on it. (end credits)

well, it always comes down to few things

1. confidence you have in your abilities to perform
2. ability to deal with errors, mistakes and wrongs

I mean you can't be sure you're going to do the best vid ever, but what you can be sure of is that you try hard enough, and that combined with your experience and knowledge should bring enough confidence.

This is also why I stepped back in photography, I don't like expectations that come when money is involved, if you mess up, it might as well be for "free", and people who pay without fully understanding what they're paying for can be a huge pain sometimes. And in the end, it's all marketing, communication, if you have a name, people will forgive you more.

Back on the video, as it was said before, I'd keep the audio but only part of the reading video, replacing the rest with other relevant scenes, while keeping the reading in the background. This way you keep all the reading, but visually, it's potentially more dynamic. Of course, this is mostly theory from my part so don't take it as the absolute truth.

Whetehr or not I think the scheme is a good idea, I think something you might encourage the parents to do is to include some footage of Emma talking about what she's read with them, or commenting on it. Not a lot, just one or two sentences to show some level of comprehension.