interview

I considered not coming to the Thursday class, having to endure the film I had made for my first assessment.
Subjecting the class to my ‘girl gone abstract’ production.
#eyeroll

My themes were so bleak that I now look back and chuckle now that the nausea has subsided.

I’ve always had a problem with turning things on myself and then sharing it.
I don’t keep a journal, my hand gets tired from writing and I don’t like to type my feels because I find it too impersonal.
So I don’t write about my feelings, but I do take pictures of others who emulate the way I feel.
It’s my chosen form of introspection.

How many times have you had to share something personal with people?
How many times have you had to share something personal with a room of people you don’t know well?
It’s said that we find it easier to share with those we don’t know, as opposed to those we do.
I find it easier to talk to people I am close to because I feel it will be understood better than someone judging me on face value.

I think I was stuck in the middle of wanting to share myself with the class but also not wanting to share myself at all.
Adding insult to injury, I use an RMIT laptop which experiences separation anxiety from the campus server once I open it at home and proceeds to shut down my Adobe programs.
‘End program’ is the dialogue box from hell and has been the bane of my entire scholastic existence.
My project was shut down in excess of 5 separate times, forcing my soul to be crushed 3 out of those 5 times, my files to be lost, forcing me to recover and regroup.
I eventually ran out of steam and ended up submitting something I wasn’t proud of out of pure frustration, coupled with lack of motivational drive.

As I sat in class and watched others share themselves with us, I realised we have a diverse mix of creatives, each individually interesting and each video served as a teaser or trailer.
A lot of people were left to be continued and in a strange way, regardless of how each of our videos turned out, it did familiarise us all with each other a lot more.

Brian put us into groups again and showed us how to use the filming equipment.
I felt like a kid again, the cam-corder reminded me of the family recorder we’d take out on special occasions/everyday.
I’d never used the video recorders from RMIT, opting for a Canon 5D3 for all my filming work, I prefer the Canon glass, the film quality and the smooth auto focus.

I suggested to the group that we take to level 12 of building 8 to film, as they wanted somewhere sound tight.
We decided who would be interviewed, what the questions were and how we were going to frame it.
It was a quick job with the little time we had and we took the mickey out of it, as was to be expected.

It was great to put filming into practise as my contextual class is Cinema studies and we’re discussing mise en scene, editing and cinematography on a weekly basis.
I began to notice the 180 degree rule when we had to film the ‘nodding’ reaction cut-away shots, making sure we stayed on the same side of the imaginary line, so as not to distort perspective when it came time to edit.

Looking forward to editing the footage (on campus, as close to a server as humanly possible)

The Five why’s; Who, What, When, Where, Why?

Who.. Someone of interest, someone who has a story to tell, someone who you can look at and that in itself is enough to draw you in.

What.. Perhaps they are working towards something to no avail. Their story is of despair or overcoming weakness. The most important of all the questions; what makes them worth listening to.

When.. Their story has been taking place since they were young, working tirelessly towards a resolve. Tirelessly they persevere..

Where.. Melbourne? Internationally? Are they local and where have they gone? What environs have informed their life and work? Where are we?.. Where are they going?

Why.. Is it important? Why do I care? Why are they worth talking to? Can I bring worth to the character, or am I merely a surrogate..

I’ve had to interview a lot of people and I will not say that I have by any means done it well.
Most of that is largely due to the direction that I was given and my uncertainty in my own abilities at that particular moment in time.

Last year, we were working on a project for the Alessi Mutants exhibition at RMIT.
I was new to my role in media and marketing, having worked as an exhibition designer, fresh from architecture, I was in new territory and under new command.
My advisor was a media and marketing coordinator, an RMIT alumni who took on my suggestion of interviewing and photographing students who had designed products for the exhibition – personalising the products.

She insisted that we film the interviews on iPhones and minimise the amount of post-production.
We sent out emails to students with questions, prepping them for what was going to be asked of them upon arrival at the studio.
Each showed up unprepared and unaware of the email – it was a mess.

The students transformed into completely new people as soon as the camera was pointed at them.
They couldn’t describe their work, they became tongue-tied and the process dragged on and on.

We were making a short 30-50 second video for social media, back when Instagram only allowed shorter clips to be posted and before Instagram stories hit the scene. We worked with what we had and on our 3^rd hour at the studio, we had to pack up shop and make times to interview the remaining students at a later date.

I had prepared release forms, a photographer, the interview questions and some food and drinks while they waited for their turn.
I do wonder how I could have improved the session. Perhaps I could have been more cut-throat and given each student limited time to speak, then move on to the next one if we didn’t see any results.
Or, I could have requested that those who wanted to participate would be required to send in written answers to my interview questions, along with a printed copy, showing they have read the Q’s and had something to refer to.

Although, I do just think it comes down to what Louise said about talent.
It’s not just a term they use to describe the subject they’ll be interviewing in industry but also a means of discerning whether or not this person is someone interesting enough to draw in viewers.
Does the talent have anything worth saying? Can the talent deliver their information with enough interest to hold attention or create it?
– I believe that’s where we went wrong. We wanted to be inclusive and make sure everyone had a say but should have focused on those who had strength in tone and let their accompanying designs speak alongside them.

#lessonlearnt