The Gardasil debate

Great issue and wonderful discussion. I like the fact that you highlight how many people are clueless about HPV.
Tips to make it better: 1. Shorter the pod by perhaps cutting out the shots of the interviewer walking to the places - it just got too long towards the end 2. Interview people who are advocates of Gardasil (ie. Planned Parenthood / other liberal organizations)

This is great. I like that you have a person who actually went through something going out and "getting the facts" so to speak. I would have loved it if you cut down on those transition shots (one or two would suffice in my opinion) and replaced them with more MOS with parents. That's one of the most fascinating parts of a story like this...the vaccination range that they're asking for. It's super-young and it's interesting even if your'e not a Catholic and member of the religious right. Anyway, I think the concept you have here is great and I gave you a phat GL.

Yeah. Relevant topic -- perfect for Current's audience. But it feels like a PSA in the beginning, and then you almost lost me b/c it took forever to get up the elevator...
Also, set up the priest a little better -- first you mention Focus on the Family, then you have all that religious imagery and jump to the warm and cuddly Episcopalians. I'd ditch the nice priest altogether, because the mom's reaction -- like many parents, she can't imagine her toddler having sex at age nine, which has nothing to do with her religious affiliation! -- is more common than you'd think.
And with all public health stories, I think it's imp not to scare people. Not all HPV cases develop into cervical cancer.
Also, this happened in June, so you might need to cut some of your refs to the "end of the month."
But overall, great pod. She's pretty, sympathetic, and engaging on-camera.

At little long but really good. This should be on television.

Very good topic. HPV is the number 1 cause of cervical cancer not only in the US but also in Latin America and it is amazing that most of the people don't even know what it is. I found it very informative, but I agree with the other comments that the shots of the interviewer walking to the places could be cut down. GL

I like the subject and the production value was all really good. There were two things that nagged at me and I only offer them as constructive observation. The first thing I wondered was if the tone of the piece was occasionally walking a little too close to a covert advertisement for a pharmaceutical company. In particular where one of the tags at the end was "ask you doctor". That is very close to what the commercials often say. I don't know that this is the intention of the piece but it does occasionally take on that tone.

The second thing was I wondered why people were asked what HPV stands for rather than what HPV is. I bet a lot of people wouldn't know what HIV or AIDS stands for either but most of them would know what it is. It felt a little like the question was designed to get the answer it wanted rather than looking for accurate information about people's awareness.

Overall great work though and I admire your passion for the subject.

Good video, liked the filming, and definitely the topic. Like many, I've never heard of this until watching this video. GL for that reason. Even if some of the shots ran a little long, the video on a whole was definitely worthwile!

Excellent issue.
Reporter is very articulate.
Nice camera work...
Just remember that your powerful moments are always diluted by the weaker ones--anything that drags needs to go. This will be a top-notch pod if tightened. GL

Really HPV is nothing new and if you look you will find plenty of information (heck if you have a girlfriend or a wife you should know these things) and women who regularly visit their Docs know about preventing it and even treatments. However I can see the twist of this story, the moral issues of the vaccine. The piece sounded like a long PSA for Merk, very newsreel, not bad but really it only barely touch the surface. I would had gone down deeper into the moral issues.

Dan
I'm a fan of your work in general..and the diversity of your subject matter. While I agree that a slight tune-up could enhance the production ( For instance- the final 5PTS on TV is just incredible...the cuts, the flow... you just gave it one more push and it's one of my favorite pods), I also think it's good as it is. On a serious topic like this, I was drawn in to learn more, and not look for flashy sequences. So, as it stands I don't have too much to criticize and just want to give you props for doing consistently great work. And, you already got my GL days ago...

Editing is pretty good, but I'm not sure how often we need to see her walk, or look at things in the elevator. It's an important issue that should have a bigger audience; airing on Current would probably help.. For some reason that last shot stuck out for me--visually; color.. composition... something.

I also think a lot of the getting there shots could be cut out to shorten it up just a bit. I also noticed the sound was off from the rev. mouth. Good ending shot could personality to carry through the pod.
GL

Talbott

Thu struggle continues.This needs to be seen its knowledge.

Excellent pod. I love that the host confides in the beginning why this matter is personal. I really like how you take us on a sort of journey.

I didn’t care for the religious interview because it was so clearly biased. I would have preferred to see someone from the religious right explain themselves why young girls should not be inoculated. Unfortunately, there is no way around using a female pastor/priestess and it not being leftist.

I also felt the same way when you did the man on the street interviews. It seems that everyone you spoke with had no clue. I know what HPV stands for. Certainly someone you spoke with knew.

All that aside, I really liked the interview you did with the parents and I wish you could have grilled the parents a little more. Obviously the father was surprised when he found out the age in which the vaccine needs to be given. You should have thrown all the statistics at him (and his wife) and got their responses.

I feel strongly EVERY young person should get this vaccine. No if ands or buts about it. No one plans on getting HPV. And if I’m not mistaken, there are studies that suggest men who get genital warts have increased risk of prostate cancer. I wonder if this vaccine works for that too.

In any event, excellent job. Green light.

This pod definitely belongs on air, it is informing and well documented.

Informative and educational thank you. I don't know if it was done intentionally, but during the interview with the Doctor, the frame was flipped. Interesting, but the background makes it noticeable. All in all I hope this pod airs.

Dr. M.

nice pod

Asthetically, I loved it. Great camera angles. I believe that providing pre-teens and teen with this drug is a family decision. I tend to agree that this could be mistaken for a PSA in support of and for Merck. I liked the clergy was represented. Why did you not include a comment from Focus on the Family or the other opposional group you mentioned?

It does sound too promotional.

Dan,

This is interesting.

I didn't know from the title or the single image on screen that this was a short film on women's health. Frankly, I thought your "narrator" was attractive and wanted to see where the piece would go. I thought it might be a performance piece. And since there are so few clips on Current TV that use "actors," I thought I might be in for a treat!

I'll come back to the "performance" of your narrator a little later.

As a healthcare advocacy clip, you state a problem, offer a simple explanation, and describe a remedy. Then you turn to the notion of a religious perspective on that treatment, since it's comes from a sexually transmitted disease, reasoning that religious conservatives might interpret the access to treatment as a tacit approval of, or an invitation to promiscuity.

What's appealing about the approach in this clip is how it takes a conventional narrative set-up and uses "real people" as on-camera resources. Your narrator seems to have done some research on HPV. She rattles off pertinent facts and goes about finding answers, much like Michael Moore does in his films.

Taking this approach is a double-edged sword. Your interview with a doctor seems credible. But here's an example in which subtitles do wonders. What are her credentials? What is her specialty? The same is true with the female cleric you interview in Harlem. What are her credentials? And, I have to say, she doesn't look like any cleric I've EVER seen. Maybe it's just me, but when a someone's appearance is that unusual, I find it distracting; moreso it begs for an explanation.

But let's talk about your narrator / interviewer. It really doesn't matter that I find her attractive; and it doesn't matter that a woman that I find attractive is discussing sexually transmitted diseases. It's just my hang-up and a minor one at that. But the point remains. If I think she's attractive, I'd imagine lots of people do, too. Fair or not, I expect more from her. I expect her to be an actress and have the on-camera skills of an actress. You know, when she speaks directly into the camera, she does. But when she's walking around and when she interviews people on the street, she doesn't. More importantly, your on-camera interviewer, if she's good in front of the camera, needs to draw in the viewer with a sense that she cares about what she's pursuing. In many cases she does, but in others, she seems rushed and ill-at-ease.

Allow me to talk about the technical aspects of the piece. Some of the photography is quite good. Particularly the straight on, close-ups. But when your narrator is moving, there are too many shots of her with her back to the camera, and several shots in which the sound recording suffers. From an editing perspective, there are too many "moving through space" shots. You just don't need to see her going from point "A" to point "B." All you need is an establishing shot, with your interviewer / narrator already speaking under the shot in voice-over, then you cut right to her in the interview. In the sequence of shots with the doctor, you cut from the doctors left side to her right side, and back again. Technically, this is called "crossing the stage line." The effect it has is disorienting. Ideally, the camera should be behind the interviewer, on the subject of the interview. So the interviewer is cut off by the frame and the subject dominates the shot. It's an "over the shoulder shot." It's designed to create a relationship, both dramatically and geographically between the two people.

I say all this because I can tell how much effort you put into your project, and how much you want to get it right. Hopefully I've blathered on in a way that'll do you some good. Filmmaking isn't easy. It's exhausting. But, it's worth it because it moves people.

Good luck.

Jeff

This is a much better version. You could clean it up a bit as the other posts already commented on. Overall, you are sending out the right message. This is an important health issue and it should save more than one life by getting this issue out in their faces.

A vaccine that can prevent any disease for a persons lifetime is the ultimate goal of preventive medicine. Witholding preventive therapy to a potentially fatal disease is not only cruel, barbaric but short of moronic cruelty I don't know how to call it. I will have my son and stepdaughter vaccinated of course, it's a gift of life!

TJ Walkup of www.omnificpictures.com says: Good POD! These are things that people shoould talk about openly so that young people and old alike can protect themselves from complications caused by HPV. Well done. It could be tightened up a little but other than that it is well done!

Fascinating.

Great subject! You can get to the doctor a lot faster and make it smoother. But well done!

Great job! This is definitely and issue that needs more attention...kudos on a job well done..and in less then 10min...wow!!

Check out my video about the survivors of hurricane Katrina in Houston..let me know what you think!

This needs to be on TV. This is CURRENT !!! GL great job

great piece. I found the camera shaking a little distracting but it still has a good message and raises a point I haven't even heard about!

Agreed that we have an important topic appealling to the Current TV demographic and an attractive narrator. But we also have some serious problems with both the topic and its execution.

The debate that the title announces is never engaged on the level of debate. The "religious right," for example is set up as a strawman, a target for the narrator. There's no one from this group representing its opinion. What we have instead is others stating that opinion, an opinion that is basically simply asserted to belong to the conservative. We get the Anglican view as a summary of both views. If we want this to be seen as a debate, we need the counter view from someone with equal gravitas. It also talks about kinds getting the vaccine and raises moral issues, but it doesn't include parents. In some ways I see this video as intellectually dishonest.

The technical problems are not as bad, but they are distracting. This is supposedly a debate. I would expect the visual rhetoric of the piece in at least some way to relect conflict. It doesn't. There's lots of walking, a shot of the reception desk, and other filler that has little to do with the weight of the topic or its content. And why do people move in rapid time in the street. If we're talking about the potential of the vaccine to move young people to sex, then why not images that further this idea?

My best response to the video echoes Jeff. I feel the sincerity and admire the choice of topic. I'd encourage the filmmakers to match image to content, to think about visual rhetoric to go along with the words.

And also like Jeff, I wish you good luck.

this is a great video... keep up the good work

Good luck

Frank

Hi, I'm a huge fan of your NYC shooting,keep up the good work, love the way your stuff looks. You might dig Twilight Ballet under the FDR
GL getreel

hmmm. i like this piece and the female narrator. good subject. i really struggle
with how long it is. the shots of her walking from location to location adds lots of
dead time and weight to film. The dialogue and interviews need to be edited shorter so
there is more impact. Over all, could you edit the whole film down. It would be so much
more powerful. :)

I like it. I think some of the walking B-roll is a bit long. I think you could trim some out of this and it would be better. Well done, good camera angles.

that lady is hot, and she is smart you have my greenlight

looks really good, clean, for the most part good audio but it does drag too much, the b-roll does break up the monotony of just talking but the walking and generic shots don;t add much, maybe try and make it pop more, maybe a music segment or something. Otherwise, great pod, very informative, good style. GL!

as always, if you have time, check out my pods.

Highly informative pod, hope it gets on air to raise awareness

Highly informative pod, hope it gets on air to raise awareness

Have your read this article, people?????
link

Have your read this article, people?????
link

Hey Dan, where's your new work, love your stuff as I've told you in the past. Come see my latest New York City adventure Shadow Boxer link

Dan & Michelle, I really enjoyed your pod. Great topic -- it's an issue that Merck (Gardasil's