LIVE: Food, Family, Culture & Community

Food brings people together. Every day, all over the world, people sit down and share meals with each other. Student Reporting Labs wants you to explore the food traditions in your life.

How does what you eat shape who you are?

What kinds of dishes do you enjoy with your family and friends? How do these foods and recipes tell a story about you, your family, your culture, and your community?

For this project, your challenge is to produce a FEATURE STORY about how food connects to family, culture, and community. Think about the meals you love– holidays, traditions, restaurants, people and their stories. Think about the process of making or eating a favorite recipe and sharing it with people you care about. DEADLINE: March 3, 2023.

• Tell a personal story about your favorite dish: Spam 3 Ways
• Share how recipes are passed through generations: The Beauty of Gefilte Fish, Parents Rate Their Children’s Kimchi
• Explore a food festival or holiday meal and what it means to your community
• Tell a story about a restaurant you love: How To Run a TikTok-Famous Bodega
• TikTok: students teach us about Nopales for Hispanic Heritage month

As you think about how to make your own story, try to keep young people front and center, and the food as secondary (although your broll should be beautiful enough to make the audience hungry!).

Short social media video (TikTok, YouTube shorts, IG reels ect. 60-90 seconds): Use your creativity, have fun, and tell a story about food, culture, and identity. Check out SRL’s social media video guidelines.

Profile (2-4 min long): The story of one person. It has voiceover (VO), b-roll, pictures, nats (natural sound), interviews of family members or peers of that one person.

News package (3-5 min long): Video stories about newsworthy issues and topics, factual information, balanced reporting, research, voice overs, soundbites, b-roll footage, infographics, reporter standup, nats (natural sound bites).

NAT package (2-4 min long): A video story guided by the natural sound from interviews and the environment. Natural sound, commonly known as “NAT sound,” puts the viewer in the place the story was told by enhancing the scene(s) with video containing rich audio such as a musician singing at a train station, a storm approaching, or the sound of a tractor plowing the field. This kind of story would often not have a voiceover narration.

No matter which format you choose, b-roll is going to be very important! A good profile, short social media video, news package or NAT package could be taken to the next level with some great b-roll! Here’s more advice on using your phone to film broll.

Use b-roll as the VISUAL REPRESENTATION of the story. If you are interviewing someone, listen closely, make notes, and then record video of the actions, objects, and places described during the interview. Especially for this project, strong b-roll will help communicate the story of the artwork or artist you choose.

THINK CRITICALLY

• Take a few minutes to think through the following questions individually: what are my favorite meals? How do I share them with my family and friends? What do these foods reveal about my culture and my community?
• Once you finish brainstorming, share your thoughts and ideas with your class or group.

FIND YOUR STORY

Use this storytelling roadmap to complete your story. Use it as both a guide and a checklist.

• QUICK GUIDE: Video Production
• SRL CHALLENGE SKILLS AND STANDARDS CHECKLIST

Rule of Thirds

Look at the image below. ​Typically, video journalists frame their interview subjects to follow the rule of thirds​. When composing a shot for most types of recorded interviews, imagine there’s a Tic-Tac-Toe grid over the screen. Make sure the main action, or the subject's eye, is positioned at one of the intersecting points. Typically the subject looks at the interviewer NOT​ at the camera. You can also flip the side of the frame for stories with multiple interviews.

UPLOADING VIDEO FILE:

Rename the video file with your information: STATE_School_Name_Food.mp4

Example: VA_FlowerHigh_SarahSmith_Food.mp4

File type: .mp4, codec: h.264, resolution: 1080x1920 (vertical), 30fps

Exporting .mp4 using Premiere or Final Cut Pro

SUBMIT HERE