From Good to Great

Posted January 04, 2020

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Spectrum1 Wisconsin MMJ Marti Glaser took out bootcamp a few months ago.

As you can see, she has the 5-shot method down to a 'T' and as a result has shot, edited and produced a pretty perfect story here about a local glassblower.

But now that she has this skill set under her belt, how to do we take the story to the next level of sophistication?

While beautifully shot and edited, and also well told and well written, the story is claustrophobic. That is, that while we are getting all the good info we need, we are essentially trapeed with this guy as he blows glass in a very small space.

But listen to the track and it will tell you what to do.

Glass blowing is not his profession, it is instead his passion and apparently also a family business. 

In 'real life' he works as a medical salesman.

Here then, are the missing elements to take this very well shot and cut story to the next level. 

We need to see Schmidt at work as a medical salesman. What a great contract to the physicality of glass blowing.  He's probably in a suit, sitting in a cubicle or driving from doctor's office to doctor's office with a bag of samples.  Great contrast.

Second, Marti refers to glass as a family business. Let's see it, even if it is so small that he has to keep selling medical stuff to make ends meet.

Now we have 3 locations instead of 1.  And we have a nice contrast. We also have an arc of story - both emotionally and physically, as we can be in the car with him as he drives from medical sales to the glass blowing workshop.

This is a lot of new content, but how do you do it in a reasonable time frame?

This is where the 5-shot method really kicks in.

Let's face it - to show him at work as a medical sales guy will require, what, 15 shots? At the most. How much are you really going to need to tell this part of the story. But they have to be perfect. This should take you no more than 20 minutes to pull off. 

Likewise with the famiy business. Also nice to get him at home with the family.

Now, see the difference?

Now instead of a good piece, you have a great one.

But it's all a matter of planning and most importantly, a very low shooting ratio.

Great stories don't happen by accident after you show up. They are planned out before you get there - then executed.

From Good to Great.