REFLECTION 5 – BEING INDEPENDENT-ISH

So I have completed my first graded assessment practical exercise and to be honest I feel very conflicted with the result. It was a very quick shoot, with Alaine’s help I interviewed one of my new friends of the year Eloise Large. Elly has become one of my favourite people this year and I think her story of coming to live in Melbourne at pretty much the same age I was during my first year is very striking.

I think the reason why I chose to interview her was that her life was just different to mine, and that she took the chance that I never took. I wanted to know what it would have been like if I had followed what she did, and moved out of home, to another island, away from family and friends.

Armed with an EX3, a boom mic and a micro LED panel I opted to have the traditional one-take of answers. I didn’t want to force her to answer or repeat certain phrases, and instead wanted an authentic experience of Elly’s personality. However, that did lead to a lot of unscripted responses and repetition. Elly is also a media student and knew the kinds of answers I wanted, but she also did that too well, and as I reviewed the footage from the interview she would repeat certain phrases multiple times, and try to word things purposely in ways that seemed more professional. At the time of interviewing I didn’t realize it was happening, so I couldn’t comment on it. I think I was too invested in just the interview process and not the editing that would come later on.

Another note on editing was that I realised with an unrehearsed question comes an unrehearsed answer, and a lot of stuttering. Elly was already a quick talker and with the added pressure of being in front of a camera, her words would leave her brain too fast and she would stumble for words, using “Um” very frequently. I was able to capture the clear sentences and edit around her bad habit, but I think it still comes across in the final product. I think if I had the confidence to ask her to re-structure some of her sentences and if we had more time to shoot, than it could have come across smoother. But I liked her genuine comments on being independent-ish, and her experience was what I wanted to capture. Her transition from young naive teen into ‘adult’ is happening right in front of me as her first year of uni goes by, and I really just wanted to document this moment of her life.