I clearly remember as if it were yesterday the years I spent as a media specialist for the Bedford School District in Bedford, NY producing in-house cable videos for the public school district and its surrounding community.
It gave me great joy to find talent, interview guests before air time, set up cameras for the studio shoot, and record interesting district-wide happenings. What I really loved, though was to go on location to videotape plays, concerts, games and other school-related events. Then I would go back to the editing suite and spend countless hours to create a complete television production with slides, graphics and music. It was delightful to witness the outcome of each show and its positive reaction from cable viewers.
I guess I had the most fun shooting images from every possible angle. I captured scenes of the exact performance, concert, or school event from all distinctive aspects. I would shoot using wide lenses and close-ups; side shots, back panoramas, and full frontal views. I would prop my camera on my shoulder and run to balconies, staircases, hillsides to capture the view from above, and then I would move toward the subjects to find an interesting shot from a lower point of view to reveal a different aspect of the same scene. I chose every shooting angle imaginable. And I would also focus in on a particular musical instrument, a fascinating person; a not- expected reaction from the crowd.
I would film in rain, sun, snow, sleet, in all kinds of weather trying to capture the light, darkness, the dancing flakes of snow, and hard pellets of rain that might suddenly appear within a moment’s notice. I videotaped through tall grasses, around trees, through fences trying to approach images in a never- seen -before picture—the very same scene only from a different outlook.
In the editing suite, I noticed with awe how the same picture or story shot at a different angle could produce dissimilar interpretations. And if I altered the photo shoot using various editing techniques, the perspective of the view would also change to reflect the latest film interpretation.
I learned something in that editing room and in constructing a story to tell through media: it is easy to see one perspective and believe in its “rightness” but it is far better at home, work, or play to see things at a unique angle—because the “flawlessness” of story content might appear entirely accurate.
It just depends on your point of view; your perspective!