Staging Video

Kelsey Waananen

I completely agree with Dave Wertheimer’s stance on staging. Having worked on a high school yearbook, I know that it was almost expected that photographers would go out with the sole intention of returning with staged material. Staging is juvenile, lazy and doesn’t even make for good shots- the people are awkward, the journalist should feel awkward and the audience feels awkward because they know what quality work looks like, and what it doesn’t.

I understand that sometime things do not work out as planned but as Wertheimer points out, they story should then take a new turn. If there is a story that is so important that it cannot be used in another way and a journalist missed the opportunity and cannot think of a new way to tell the story, they may want to reconsider their career as a storyteller.