http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/nepal-defending-koshi
The opening to this video is one of the most impactful ways I have seen still photos used in a video piece in quite some time. They set up a studio with hanging lights and string to clip the photos to. Then they moved through that space to capture video of the still photos. As someone that comes from a still photography background I am always looking for creative and natural feeling ways to incorporate still images. I think this method was very successful in telling the story, and made the photos even more tangible to the view because they are printed out. The rack focus and slow pans really helped to set the mood for the dramatic narrative that was about to be told. The ominous music and forlorn quotes from local people set the stage very quickly that all is not okay. I appreciate the fact that the photos are faces of many locals and we are hearing the thoughts of the locals. All of these factors, in the first minute and 11 seconds, lead the viewer to a basic understanding of the important issue we are about to dive in to.
We are immediately brought into this world through the music and natural sounds that they blended together. This sound design throws you right in the middle of the Nepalese jungle and really gives you a feel for the surroundings. They also use some landscape time-lapse and general scene setting clips to push this even further. By the time the narration of the film starts we have a pretty good idea of place (02:00). These beginning clips are certainly jump cuts from scene to scene, but the motivation is also to start wide with landscape, move down to the water, and then to an individual utilizing that water. Even when they do text on screen they use a nice dead space composition to house the text (02:27).
After we gain bit more understanding about the history of the possible construction of a dam, they move forward to show us a little slice of life. Again, jumping from scene to scene. They seem to go mostly between close up and medium shots, all focusing on details of every day life there. This focus narrows down again to everyday water use in detail shots (03:15). These shots are important to the story because it makes us care about the people involved. Shooting the places that they live, in close up detail shots, puts us in their shoes. This leads us into hearing from the people who live in the area via on screen interviews. They cut between a super tight shot, with virtually no head room, to grab at the emotional parts of the interview and a medium shot for the more general factual parts of the interview. They use this two-camera interview style throughout most of the interviews in the piece. The interviews seem to be naturally lit, which feels nice for an intimate story.
Cleverly they jump back to the studio shot still images as a transition to talk about the next part of the story (04:12).
The story goes on in this fashion for another nine minutes. They use each technique throughout the whole film, which to me greatly helps in making it feel cohesive even when they are traveling to different areas. They also tie up the piece using the same studio technique as the intro with the stills, as well as video portraits with dozens of people in close up that drive the pace of the last minute of the story (11:20).
