Reflect on your second Individual Exercise, The Interview.  What approach did you take, and why?  How did it go?  What is your assessment of the result?

My initial aim of this individual exercise was to capture a really honest and raw emotion. I wanted to showcase a true emotion and the thoughts a feelings a person has towards a particular situation. As I was speaking to my friend Jessie and I was thinking about what questions to ask her she mentioned the pain of her last relationship. With her consent we sat down and for 2 hours talked about everything. How it started, how she felt, what went wrong, how it impacts her and how she copes. In this 2 hours I let her talk, I wanted her to recount her experiences and emotions in such an honest way. I intervened occasionally to direct the conversation to where I wanted it to go, but for the most of it I wanted a true reflection from her perspective. At first I really didn’t want to film for so long, but that was the only way she could communicate her emotion and it had to build up. This made it extremely difficult for me through editing as I cut 2 hours of footage down to 2 minutes. What I learnt from this exercise? well I learnt how to really focus on the important elements to still communicate her entire story in a condensed time. The only trouble with this is perhaps some parts don’t quite flow and fit as well as they could. I also think some things are left a bit unexplained and confusing. However I still think I was able to piece together the overall message and in some aspects I like the way as audiences we are still left wondering about certain aspects. A part I was very conscious about when filming was the use of camera shots, I wanted a range. Some close ups to show her emotion, some mid shots and some longer shots. The shot at the end I intentionally gave lots of headroom because I wanted that empty space to give a real openness to the shot. Likewise I purposefully left in moment of silence where the subject thinks about reflects, or moments where she mutters to herself. Things that are a bit more real and moments where its as if the camera doesn’t phase her, these are elements of the interview I find I connect and engage with.

Technically I accidentally filmed a clip and forgot about the white balance and then realised and re did this. This was very important as the footage I didn’t white balance came out very blue so I couldn’t use it. I felt better with the focus and exposure. When filming I used black and white and the zebra to assist me with finding the right exposure. Due to the white wall at certain points I gave a little more exposure despite the zebra because I was focusing more on the subject. All in all I fell it turned out well.

I will upload both videos in both colour and black and white, personally I love the aesthetic of black and white. I think it really fits on the raw material and allows audiences to focus on the subject and content. 

Just to continue with this exploration I wanted to film one more short interview which I will complete this Friday. I wanted to capture a similar thing but I want to explore with a different background to test out my exposure. Likewise I want to trial different shots and thus will experiment with handheld. I will be filming my Dad on his decision to trek in Nepal for 5 months and hope to really capture another un-staged and raw moment.