Getting a shot

When Jordan Earley was young, his mother gave him a camera to take pictures with. His interest in moving pictures skyrocketed from there.

“That’s how it started,” Earley said. “I would always take pictures of anything and everything around my house, my neighbor’s house, even if I didn’t know them. And, I would try the little video thing that was on the camera.”

Later on, Earley decided he wanted to produce real videos and write skits.

“But, they weren’t even actual videos. They were just my friends and me hurting each other for fun,” Earley said while smiling.

Last November, Earley, 17, did a job shadow with the Osceola Sentinel-Tribune. He asked if he could bring his video camera to cover an event in Murray.

Earley’s video was published on the newspaper’s website, and every few months he would attend more news events to cover in Clarke County for his video journalism.

This led to Earley being officially asked to be a video journalist stringer for the Osceola Sentinel-Tribune.

How he sees it

With video journalism, Earley said he enjoys recording events the way he sees it, and allowing other people to see it that way, too.

“Not everybody sees the same things I do,” he said. “So, having my chance to be able to show everybody else this specific thing through my perspective is actually kind of cool.”

Earley can produce a three-minute video from recording, editing and producing in about an hour and a-half.

His equipment includes a Sony HD camera, tripod lights and umbrellas, green screen and Cyberlink video editor and computer.

Sometimes, Earley will work in iMovie, but he mainly works with the program Cyberlink Power Director 12.

“That’s probably the only thing that I use because I know how to use it, and it makes it a little easier for me to cut clips and put it all into a video,” he said.

Finished product

Various thoughts and feelings course through Earley’s mind once he has finished producing a video segment.

“Well, if it’s a really good one, I feel really good about it,” he said. “If it’s a not so good one, I still feel good about it because I made a video. It came out to be somewhat of what I wanted, but it allows me to rewatch the not good one to fix it, to see what I did wrong, what I can do to improve it. And, that helps me by learning from my own mistakes.”

There are many things he’s been learning by professionally covering events, including not satisfying everybody with the finished recording.

What that boils down to is not everything can be put into a two to three minute video.

“That factor — you can’t really please everybody with what you do,” Earley said. “It’s probably the biggest thing that I’ve learned.”

More to come

As for the future, Earley doesn’t exactly know what’s in store. Someday, he would like to see the images he produced to be on television for more people to see and experience.

But, for now, Earley still has to complete his senior year at Clarke Community High School.

This also means more videos to come for Osceola Sentinel-Tribune’s website.

As for his video goals for the rest of the year, Earley said he would like to have them become “slightly less worse.” Each video will be about growth and progression.

“I want each one to get a little better,” Earley said. “This way, around the end of the year when I’m about to go for college, I can see how much has changed throughout the course of time and see what I have improved on and what I can still improve on.”