Soldiers, Girl Scouts team up to ship cookies to troops overseas
Dallas Morning News -Video: Tom Fox/Editing: Lara Solt
1. Point of View
The point of this story was to show viewers here in the United States that our soldiers overseas appreciate care packages. Volunteer soldiers from the Carrollton Army Recruiting Station partnered with the Girl Scouts of Texas Oklahoma Plains and Airborne Angel Cadets of Texas to ship donated cookies to U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The volunteer soldiers made the story very real and personal through their appreciation and hard work loading the cookies onto the truck. The point was that people here in the states should think more often about giving their time and efforts for our troops, and how thankful they are for every bit of it.
2. A Dramatic Question
What keeps the viewer interested and wanting to watch until the end of the story has a lot to do with the visuals from the video. There are $65,000 worth of Girl Scout cookies being loaded onto a truck by soldiers. This makes the viewer very interested in what is going on. Where are the cookies going? Why are they going there? How long did it take to raise the money to send that many boxes to its destination? There are many questions that keep the viewer listening and watching. How is it going to end? And by the end of this story, the viewer understands and appreciates the outcome.
3. Emotional Content
This story has a lot of emotional content. There are thousands of soldiers fighting for our country, and many people have lost loved-ones. For those who know people overseas, or even don’t, can be touched emotionally by this compelling story of people giving money so that our troops can feel appreciated and loved while they are gone.
4. The Gift of Your Voice
The interviews in this story were very informative. But one interview in particular with a volunteer soldier was particularly compelling. He said that many troops don’t receive anything for months at a time, and something like the Girl Scout cookies makes all the difference in the world. Not only did that personalize the story and humanize the soldiers which we don’t know personally, it drew emotion from the viewer.
5. The Power of the Soundtrack
There was no music in the story, but the interviews and the visual storytelling made up for what could have been lost by no soundtrack.
6. Economy
There were many visuals, and the interviews really sent a message to its viewers. The video and the interviews complemented each other and added to the story without distracting elements. The point was made well. The video was not lengthy, and shouldn’t have a problem holding people’s attention.
7. Pacing
The story was very well done and paced very well. There was an adequate amount of air time for all of the images and interviews. It made sense and was not confusing.
