I-Team: Generics Not Always the Same as Brand Name Drugs

“While many patients believe that generic drugs are exact copies of their brand name brothers, the body often absorbs generic medication at a different rate, and federal regulators do not routinely disclose the slight chemical differences.”


BEHIND THE SCENES:

Obscuring an identity is something we face all too often. With this piece, we were asked to meet our subject in Central Park. This location gave me a number of opportunities to make our interview visually interesting, while still protecting the subject.

You can see a number of different angles used here. The park offered a variety of objects to place in between the camera and the interview. These foreground/background shots help set the location, and they also give the viewer something to look at besides a blurred mush of pixels.

With these situations, it’s vital to get some reaction shots of the reporter. Having those shots helped me avoid jump cuts and kept the editing nice and smooth. When shooting the reversals, I like to “dirty up” the shot (relax, it’s a film term). I make sure to frame part of the subject close enough to the camera so they’re out of focus. This supports the already established location of the subject and reporter in the frame. Having a dirty frame also helps to orient the viewer to the reporter’s eyeline, avoiding confusion.