Set Up / Process
For these booth interviews Robin and I decided the subjects should be left on their own to muse over their ideas as if it were a video diary. In this way weren’t going to be influence to my presence or be able to seek clarification from me. In initial planning this was going to be shot in edit suite 12 so we were going to explore with smaller lighting alternatives such as dedos for the space that we had to work with. In the end though we opted to shoot in the green screen studio that provided us with more space and thus more freedom in terms of lighting. Under Robin’s instruction Brydan and myself experimented with lighting the interview, opting for a nice soft light. This was achieved by bouncing the light source off the walls and a white board. To deaden the black backdrop we used black board to deflect the light from our source. The end result looked fantastic and I’m thankful Robin took the time to show us a way that a professional looking interviews can be achieved. It was quite a large set up but I know that the skills were learnt and used are translatable.
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to interview as many people as I had hoped which lead me to setting up again a week later. Having to replicate the set up on my own was another valuable experience, as I had to set up audio, lighting, and camera proficiently so that what I shot matched previous interviews.
Initial Editing & Viewing
When I first viewed what I had captured I was struck with the sincerity of people’s answers. Although I knew that the questions would prompt people to delve a little deeper I was intrigued by the depth and self-reflection they conveyed. Even those who feigned ignorance, it was obvious the questions had got under their skin and prompted them to start thinking about their sense of identity and how they perceive themselves. Although I had written the questions (and was aware of the direction I wanted the answers to take), I found it a little overwhelming purging some of my deep emotions to an indifferent camera. I completely empathise with everyone who left the booth feeling a little bit distressed or emotionally spent.
I started by finding segments that I found particularly interesting or moments of true honest reflection. I thought was also beneficial to see if there were particular ideas that were present across a number of the interviews. Although I was incredibly pleases with what I have capture I’m somewhat unsure of how it can be condensed and then assembled into a vignette. Robin has advised me to pick out snippets of each interview that have a tenuous link. Doing this would imbue an idea upon their words and to use their words out of context to an extent. I totally agree with this and feel that in terms of my goals I would rather sit on the content until the right format becomes apparent.
Reflection
When discussing interviews with Robin he discussed that the best thing to do is love your subject. If you do this then your presentation of them will be an honest reflection of who you believe them to be. In doing this, the audience is more likely connect and be interesting in what they have to say. In reference to the Booth interviews that I used in my final vignette I’ve allowed Brydan, Ed and Wilson to explore if they critic their behaviour. I could have easily used similar snippets but in doing so it loses its honesty and human touch.
I believe that capturing a larger number of interviews would have been beneficial and lead me into new areas of exploration. I feel as well that a larger cross section of the population would have also yielded intriguing results. There is the lack of more mature voices and I feel that due to this these interviews serve as analysis of youth identity and how adolescence view themselves as very much transitional beings.
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