Multimedia Analysis -- Aaron Kraut

I chose to analyze this multimedia piece from The Diamondback:

http://terrapintrail.com/sports/2009/09/10/the-crew-loves-terp-soccer/

Basically, the report is about "The Crew" a group of student fans who follow the Terps' men's soccer team and heckles opposing goalies.

From the start, the video gives the viewer a sense of legitimacy with the opening credit, which tells you the project is part of The Diamondback's online operation.

The first shot of the video is members of The Crew screaming at the top of their lungs at a game, introducing themselves to the opposing goalie, "Brian." It's an interesting way to start the video. There's a lot of sound coming at you and it appropriately introduces the brashness of The Crew.

Unfortunately, we don't get to see Brian's reaction, as the camera stays focused on the fans behind him.

Then the reporter, Michael Katz, goes right into a voiceover to more formally introduce and lay out what the video is about. This segment sort of serves as the nut graf, which might be more traditional, but is needed to explain the video we just saw.

Next, the report gets into interviews with some of the founders and main members of The Crew, which looks as if it was all shot at the group's pregame tailgate. The B-roll footage is decent, but more B-roll of the actual game would have been nice. We only see The Crew perform one chant during the game. It's obvious they have more.

The camera work is a little shaky, obviously there was no tripod involved and there should have been. During the first interview you can see the shadow of the interviewer in the interviewees face, which is extremely distracting.

Other than that, some of the transitions are a little rough. But most are good, and what's important is that the content is interesting and presented in an effective order.