Video Sequence Analysis: Mina Dixon

http://www.mediastorm.org/0025.htm

I selected the "Family Farm" segment from "Driftless: Stories from Iowa," which is featured on www.mediastorm.org. The video is directed by Daniel Wilcox Frazier and explores how Iowa's rural population is bearing the burden of the bleak American economy.

It's a beautiful video. The black and white film and twangy music makes "Family Farm" feel like it's documenting another era.

Here are some things I noticed about the some of the individual shots that appear in the video:

At 00:10 seconds in, the video is just beginning with still photos. They're very scenic; there are lots of wide shots of a lone car on a dirt road, ominous storm clouds, and tractor prints in farm fields. The still photos stop at 00:29 seconds. I think they introduce the setting of the video very well. The wide shots convey the vast Iowa landscape.

At 1:10, there's a tight shot of Joni Stutzman explaining how his wife grew up on the farm where they live and work now. His hands appear in the shot, fiddling with a piece of twine. They're distracting and I think the shot may have been more successful if he were framed
differently.

At 5:39, there's a tight shot of Ruby Stutzman. It's framed so that her head and shoulders appear in the shot and her eyes are in the top third. She's ruminating on the future of the Stutzman family farm and seems to recognize that not all of her children are enthusiastic about continuing the farm's legacy. Her voice breaks and her eyes fill right at this moment, and then the video cuts to a medium shot of her sons hopping into a farm truck and driving away to complete some chores. The implication is that they can't wait to drive away for good, and it's a very moving shot.

A sequence right at the beginning of the video shows the Stutzman family at work on their farm:

At 00:39 seconds, there's a wide shot of the barn. Ruby walks in the entryway, staggering slightly under the weight of two buckets. The barn seems impossibly big and solid.

At 00:42 seconds, there's a tight shot of Ruby's hands pouring milk into troughs for some baby calves.

At 00:45 seconds, the video jumps to a medium shot of Ruby guiding the baby calves to their food. The animals keeping nudging in and out of the frame but the camera is steady on Ruby, who is starting her day the same way she's always started her day.

This sequence seems particularly effective because it says so much about the Stutzman family and how they live before we even meet all of the members of the family. The wide shot of the huge barn--which is solid but clearly weathered by generations of use--contrasted with Ruby's petite form is great. Then, the two shots that show her at work in the barn do a nice job of piecing little bits of action together (i.e., Ruby pouring the milk, Ruby feeding the calves). It's fairly routine stuff, what she's doing, but the way the shots follow each other makes her actions seem more compelling. I think they work quite well and invite the audience to learn more about the Stutzman's way of life and their hardships.

Edited to fix some broken links.