The second week of the studio started off today with an update on the characters mentioned last week and the formation of groups. Out of all the ideas forming I still favoured the punk/vegan idea and was put into a group with Claire, Azusa and Ekey. Claire spoke to the punk looking man working at the organic food stall she noticed about taking part in the documentary and he initially seemed quite unsure about being involved but warmed up to the idea a little more when she explained that it would be visually focused and only around four minutes long with little time spent on him sitting in front of the camera during the interview. He’s going to give us a definite answer tomorrow, which we are all eagerly awaiting so we can either set up times to film or find another subject. We have decided that within the group Azusa and Ekey are going to primarily focus on editing and Claire and I on filming. We have established this early on because we feel it can be an unproductive use of time to have four people either filming or editing at once. We also thought it would make the subject of the documentary more comfortable during filming to have two people rather than four present.
Rohan then gave us a rundown on how to use the external microphones with the camera, something I have always been a little uncertain about so it was good to make sure i had the basics downpat before we go off filming on our own.
- The signal is what you’re trying to record and the noise is inbuilt noise made by the machine. The signal needs to be greater than noise.
- When recording sound it is really important to make sure you are wearing the headphones and listening, watching the levels on the camera monitor and directing the microphone in the right way.
After watching a clip from Rohans documentary All the Way Through Evening we thought about the types of things we would like our documentary subjects to say as a way to consider the questions that could lead them there and got some interview tips.
- Say ‘Tell me about….’ at the start of a question to allow the subject to speak at length and open up answers
- Ten questions is the maximum amount
- Start with a mid-range shot and move to a close up around the 8th question
- Bring the questions back to the present at the end. Always leave things as pleasant as possible.
