What Makes a Good Feature Story

       Many people make feature stories. Even more people watch feature stories. Lots of news stations will have at least a few feature stories created every day. However, not all feature stories can be the best, but they can all at least be good. A good feature story has a lot of elements, and each element helps support the overall video. The elements that you need are a good voiceover, good b-roll, good nat-noise, good lighting, good interview shots, good interview questions, and an interesting subject.

Subjects

       The most important element is the interesting subject. You need to pick a subject of your video that is able to appeal to people, where most people will enjoy the subject. That does not mean picking the most popular thing when you create videos, it means picking the subject that you are excited about and won't be boring for people to watch. Of course, if the rest of your video is exceptional, especially your voiceover, then people will be interested no matter what the video is about.

Voiceover

       The second most important element to your video is your voiceover. That is where your own personal touch comes through the most. The only way for a viewer to know who you are is through your voice. You need to speak the best way that you can. That means reading your voiceover as if you were talking to someone about something that you really enjoy. If it sounds like the person saying the voiceover is really bored, then the whole video will seem boring to the viewer. However, if you have the voiceover sound like you are excited about the topic, it doesn't matter how bad the camera footage looks in the background, the viewer will be excited about the subject of your video.

Interview

       Interviews are essential to a feature story. It is the main topic of the video. The number one rule for having your interview in the feature story is to make sure to never have your voice in the finished video. If you talk during the interview, then someone watching the video will think that the interviewee is not talking to them, and it should not fell that way. The interviews need to be set up and introduced by the voiceovers. There also shouldn't be any jump cuts within the interview, so that there isn't a weird spot where the person is moving one way, and then they are suddenly moving a different way in the exact same setting. When setting up the interview, the interviewee needs to be positioned in the right third of the frame, looking to their right of the camera. It allows the most intriguing shot for a viewer to watch, and makes it seem like the interviewee is talking to them personally, even when they really aren't.

The Other Elements

       The b-roll footage should be visually interesting to someone watching the video, but not too interesting that it distracts from the voiceover. The b-roll should also be about the subject, and relating to the overall theme of the feature story. The six shot system using close-up to wide shots is the perfect way to film the b-roll footage, if you want it the viewer to be interested throughout the whole video. The lighting in the video also needs be pretty good, or else someone will either be blinded by the brightness of the shots, or unaware of anything happening on the screen because it is too dark. The b-roll needs to be filmed in a well-lit location, but the interview portion of the video requires a little more effort on your part. The best way to have lighting set up for an interview is a bright key light 45 degrees in front of the subject, a back light that isn't as bright behind the subject, and a fill light to the other 45 degrees of the subject, that isn't as bright as the key light. The natural noise isn't as important as the other elements of the feature story. The main point is to have natural noise throughout the entire video, but you need to keep it a minimalistic level.