The Mom Question | The Seattle Times is a very short narrative, nonfiction video by cinematographer Lauren Frohne and photographer Erika Schultz for The Seattle Times. This video is part of a larger piece called “The Mom question: Seattle-area women share their complicated decisions” with reporting by Rachel Lerman and additional multimedia elements by Frohne and Schultz.
I love this interview-based, artistic video short because it uses creative editing techniques, double exposures, and overlays to take me into women’s inner struggles with the question of whether to have children or not. It is especially effective embedded in a larger multimedia story with reporting to give context, photographs to convey emotional truth and additional videos to take the viewer into each woman’s story.
Here are five techniques the producers used to convey each woman’s inner struggle.
1. Double exposure to convey inner reflection (00:02)
The video begins with a close-up shot of a woman’s silhouetted profile “double exposed” with soft, out-of-focus spots of light. The woman is also looking up and the lighting emphasizes her eyes. Taken together, I love how these elements convey a reflective inner dialogue.
2. Creative editing to convey a clash (00:18)
As the video editor, Frohne chose to use this “splicing” editing technique to convey one woman’s struggle with whether she would be able to have a career if she had a child, or if she’d have enough time to nurture a child if she prioritized a career. This decision is really effective in conveying this clash, this jolt between both questions, especially when overlaid on top of the speaker’s silhouette.
3. Overlay to convey a change in visuals (00:46)
Another creative editing technique Frohne uses is a fast, blurred overlay of a scrolling film strip to indicate a change in visuals. The film strip is overlaid on top of a soft, out-of-focus image of a baby, and a j-cut in audio leads the viewer …
4. Seeing faces to connect real people to the voices (00:48)
… to fully see a woman’s face for the first time in this video, about ¾ of the way through. Frohne’s decision to wait to “reveal” each speaker’s face was an effective way to first introduce viewers to each woman’s internal dialogue before showing who each woman is. The first half of the video made me feel as if I was in each speaker’s head; by this point my role is as a witness to each woman’s struggle.
5. Fast cuts to emphasize a big question (00:58-01:00)
“What do I do with this precious life?” asks one woman toward the end of the video. Fast cuts between vibrant visuals punctuate the speaker’s emphasis on this big, philosophical question. The fast cuts also convey a sense of the many answers to this personal question.
What amazes me is how the video can convey complexity and struggle in just over 1 minute. Check out this video, and the larger multimedia piece, for an example of how creatively edited videos, vibrant photographs, and original reporting can take us into another person’s perspective, provide context and explore complexity.
– Alisha Wang Saville