Reporting LUNAFEST Corvallis was very exciting. I was able to meet different women, listen to inspirational music by Cassandra Robertson, hear heartfelt stories about dealings with breast cancer, watch amazing short films, and eat great organic popcorn and chips. I learned about various women's issues through the moving stories of women filmmakers in film, and I learned about the generosity of LUNAFEST toward nonprofit organizations in the fight against breast cancer. The people who attended LUNAFEST were not only there to watch short films, but to support breast cancer patients, survivors, and family members who have dealt with the terrible illness. It was beautiful to see the community come together for a significant cause like breast cancer. Organizations like Sibling Rivalry, Samaritan Health Services, Pacific Power, and Jannilou Quilt Shop made generous contributions toward the event. I left LUNAFEST Corvallis with a warm feeling of unity and hope in my soul. It was a very positive, educational, and moving film festival.
Some of the challenges that I faced while I reported the festival were trying to get an interview with the event coordinator, writing notes fast enough to keep up with the speakers, and taking legible notes in the dark. It was kind of difficult to get a good interview with Linda Lovett, the LUNAFEST coordinator, because she was preoccupied with her young daughter and was in a rush to get food. Luckily, I was able to get a couple good quotes from her in two minutes, and took a lot of notes during her presentation. Writing notes was another challenge because about everything they were saying was important, and they were talking too fast. In a crowd of 400, I couldn't raise my hand and ask them to repeat themselves. It was a festival, not a lecture. Another downfall was that once the program commenced, the lights in the auditorium dimmed to practically pitch black, so I couldn't see what and/or where on the paper I was writing.
Things that went well during the reporting part of the assignment were that I got great quotes from an 11-year-old award-winning filmmaker, guests at the event, and a sponsor from Pacific Power. I also got information about LUNAFEST, breast cancer, and each organization that supported the event from booths in the lobby.
During the writing portion of the assignment, I had a difficult time weeding through all of my notes to decide what I wanted to include in my story and in what order. It took me a long time to organize my notes and decide where I wanted to start. I knew right away that the main element of the event was the support against the breast cancer, but I was excited about an anecdote that I got about Ellie VanDevelder, the 11-year-old who won the da Vinci Film Festival with her piece about homeless in Corvallis, called "Our Invisible Friends". However, I thought about what was the most important part of the event, and decided to write a hard news story starting with the donations to breast cancer research. I think it worked out because I included the side stories about Ellie and the green movement in Corvallis afterward. There were so many great ideas from the event that I wanted to include, including the inspirational music performed by Cassandra Robertson and the moving words from experienced filmmaker Paul Turner. However, their stories didn't work very well with my writing structure, and they were less important, so I cut a lot of their information out. I didn't provide a real end or conclusion to my story, but because my piece was created in the hard news, inverted pyramid structure, I figured having the less significant information, such as the food and recycling bins worked.
I think my feedback for the story should be focused on my hard news writing structure, and the fact that I was able to get quotes from the event coordinator, attendees, speakers, volunteers, a sponsor, and a young filmmaker. Unfortunately, I could not include all of the quotes that I wanted to because they did not enhance my story's main elements, but I think next time, I shall try to squeeze them in somehow.
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Having too many information to include in the story is EXACTLY the problem you want. You had good notes, which is part of what makes for a good story. I think you made the right decision to use a hard news lead. The bit about the 11-year-old could also have worked, but the topic is breast cancer, and an 11 y.o. is not at risk. You picked a great event.
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