Above photo: screen grab from the short-haul video
Today the National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service released a 10-minute video listing the requirements, capabilities, and 2016 outlook for their short-haul programs — a system of extracting personnel suspended under a helicopter on a long rope. It can be very useful for removing an injured firefighter from a remote area to a location where more conventional and less hazardous transportation is available.
The video consists of text on the screen with occasional still photos and a few seconds of actual moving video.
The fake pen “writing” the text and the fake hand sliding in photos were slightly interesting for the first few seconds but they quickly became tiresome and tedious waiting for the fake pen to create the perfectly formed letters. It would have made more sense if the pen was making text that more resembled handwriting. If your video is nothing but ten minutes of text, distracting music, a few seconds of actual video footage, and a handful of still photos, why not just create a .pdf document that someone could read more quickly than watching a gimmicky video?
The credits include Lane Lamoreaux as video editor/producer (it does not say from what agency or company), and Seth Weber of the USFS as National Short-Haul Specialist.
2 Comments
I’m very excited to see the USFS sharing information about the Short-Haul program in a very open and public way (especially via video) instead of keeping it to themselves in internal documents, as so often happens. Good job by the folks involved in this program!
Just my opinion, but so what if the video was a bit wonky in terms of presentation? I personally didn’t mind the “gimmicky” video… different strokes for different folks.
It could have been done as a PowerPoint show, and been better than what they put together.
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