This project has presented me with a lot of new challenges. Unlike with previous works of mine, both in and out of schooling, I had had near complete control over what was happening before and behind the camera, whereas with this interview, I had found myself without much power. In fact, it wasn’t until I began editing that I realized what little control I had during production. In other works, you have a script, you set times, you have controlled movements, you can give direction to every minute detail as that you know what is to cone as that it’s been planned. With an interview however, it is the interviewee who holds much of the power, ultimately determining the value of the interview, based on what was said, how they said it, and how long it took to say it. Foolishly, I had preconceived answers to my own questions in my head; expecting the answers to be said in a particular way that I could work with effectively. Even after explaining it, I expected short and concise answers, but that was not what I had ended up with. At the time of the interview Jake’s answers had seemed to flow quite well, like a casual and relaxed conversation, though with plenty of energy. It wasn’t until further review of the footage in my editing stage that I found the answers to be rather long and difficult to work with considering I had to cram over two hours of interview footage into just three minutes. Talk about coverage! To make it worse (although ultimately fun to listen to) Jake tended to fuse the answers to other questions together, creating tangents and going on excited rants. As a result, a lot of cutting and difficult rewording was needed during editing to create an almost seamless flow.
A personal problem I’ve always managed to come to during editing for me is managing to cut footage and adhere to a specifically allocated film length. No matter how hard I try, I always end up choosing too much footage and end up blowing the limit by several minutes. As a result I’m forced to compromise several shots, either cutting them down drastically, or cutting them out all together. Only being 3 minutes long, I was rather concerned for this task; worried that if I cut too much then I would miss out on displaying many answers I feel were key to the interview. However, in the end I believe I managed to cut it down to its core, only omitting what was definitely unnecessary. What could have used more work though was working on my sound levels. I found that whilst the quality was great through my headphones, the speakers I owned struggled. Whether it was my mixing or my speakers that was the problem, I’m not quite sure.
Despite these setbacks, hardships and insane amounts of stress levels I faced in its production, making this video was immensely fun and I would gladly do it again. It got me out and about, experience the atmosphere of live band rehearsal, and added to my filming, photography and editing experience. For whatever mistakes were made during this process, I’ll be sure to take them into account and learn from them as to not repeat them. (I’m looking at you, ND filter I had forgotten was on my camera, forcing me to raise my ISO and make the pictures grain city)