Shooting Assignment #2 – The Interview

In the real world of documentary interviews, you’d prepare very carefully for a short interview. You’d do research to prepare for your interview. You’d have a pre-interview conversation with your subject. You’d spend a lot of time choosing your setting, arranging the background, setting up lighting. You’d develop a very clear plan – a line of questioning – for the interview. You’d need to have your subjects sign a permission release before you started filming. And you’d think carefully about your setup.

And for this assignment?

Our goal in this exercise is modest: to become familiar with the process of shooting an interview before asking someone whose time is valuable. For this exercise, you are going to shoot two interviews of at least a couple minutes each (and at least three questions) with a human subject that is not you. Your aim? To make them look good – and to capture their story. When you are done, you will share with me both files as mp4s – and be ready to point to 30 seconds that we can watch in class.

When you are done, you will submit two .mp4 files:

  • Sit down interview – 1 shot, about 120 seconds
  • Action interview – 1 shot, about 120 seconds

1) Sit Down Interview

Set up your interviewee for a sit-down interview. Find a good spot for them – watch the light, think about background, make sure it is a quiet place. Sit your subject in a firm chair (one that doesn’t swivel). Move them forward from the wall (or whatever background you have in mind). Adjust the lighting – with windows, room lights, blinds, etc. – so that it is neither harsh nor flat. Set up the camera on a tripod (between nose and eye level).

Now – ask your subject a few questions and capture the interview. While you are shooting, you might try different framings – moving the camera to get a different angle or zooming in tight on the face.

2) Action Interview

Many doc makers have moved away from the sit-down interview. With stabilizers, wireless mics and software image stabilization it is easier than ever to follow someone around while they’re doing something and record their story. For your second interview, follow your subject while they do some kind of action. They could be: gardening, flipping through old letters, walking in a graveyard, working at a desk. Think carefully about composition, lighting, background – in order to make the subject look good – and for us to get a good look.

Now, ask a few questions – and capture the interview.

Guidelines for a Good Interview

What I haven’t talked about here are some of the things that make for good interviews. Some brief guidelines:

  • In brief, you’d like to do your research, prepare for the interview, and develop a rapport with your subject. For this assignment, just prepare three questions to ask – and make sure your subject is comfortable before you start filming
  • You’d like to have some questions – but more important than your questions are what the subject has to say – and how you might follow it up.
  • You need to stay silent when they are talking – don’t um and ah while your subject talks, just nod your head to show you are listening. We should only hear your voice when you are asking questions
  • Ask open ended questions and don’t lead the witness – let them tell their story
  • Keep yourself out of the story (unless you’ve made a creative decision to put yourself in the story)

And a note on sound

Getting good sound in interviews is absolutely essential. What are we here for if not to listen? We’ll spend some time working on this – and work in more detail. For now, some first ideas:

  • Make sure you have a quiet space
  • Consider using a lavalier mic that plugs into your camera
  • Another option is to use an audio recording device next to your subject – which could be a smartphone
  • And note that in advanced work, we’d use a shotgun and a lavalier mic so that we are recording two channels of sound to sync to the camera

Some Additional Details

Who should you talk to? And what should you talk about? That is up to you. If you have an interview that works for your final project that’s great, but optional. I’m not worried about the subject matter, but I am looking for compelling visual setup and good sound.

Submit Your Work

Pull your shots into DVR and export as .mp4 files with appropriate names. For example

  • Shaya-SitDownInterview.mp4
  • Shaya-WalkingInterview.mp4

To submit your work, create a folder on your OneDrive for your movie exports and share this folder with gshaya@wooster.edu. Upload your movie files to your shared folder. (If you are not acquainted with OneDrive see the info from COW Technology). Copy the link to your shared folder and submit (the link, not the entire files) to the Moodle assignment.

Grading

The assignment is graded out of ten points, like most of our assignments. My rubric: 6 points: you’ve submitted the assignment, but it is missing important pieces; 7 points: you’ve submitted a more or less complete assignment on time; 8+ points: good camera and interview setup – good work that fulfills the assignment; 9+ points: strong camera and interview footage; 10 points: very compelling interviews.