Thursday, 3 April 2014



Because we are having interviews for our documentary project, our course put together a workshop focusing on interviews and how to actually prepare and film them. The workshop was being taught by someone whom worked with the BBC, as well as support from Fergus.

What did we do?


Firstly, we were taught the 3 basic steps on how to set up an interview i.e. what shots and style to use. These 3 steps were:

1. A close up of the person getting interviewed. This should try and focus around using 2 thirds of the screen covered up by the interviewee. For example, showing the interviewee's head and part of his/hers shoulders.

2. The 'noddy' shot - this is the reaction shot, meaning the camera now focuses on the interviewer, showing his responses and reactions to what the interviewee is saying.

3. And thirdly, there should also be an over the shoulder shot. To make the interview easier, this can combine with the reaction shot to help save time e.g. showing the behind of the interviewee as well as the interviewer.  This can also be reversed.

These 3 shots help to make filming an interview more simple as well as saving time and reducing the chance of any mistakes and generally making it seem more professional.

The task for the day


After experiencing the interview workshop ourselves by getting together in groups and given 5 minutes to set it up, we were then set a task for the afternoon. This task was to create a realistic interview, where we decide where to film and what (however the topic itself isn't very important as this is more on experiencing how to set up an interview). We had to include actuality shots and generally shots which make the interview seem more interesting (cutaways).

Not only this, but we were only given 30 minutes to set up and film what we wanted. We were also told to have a 'walking' shot to show the two characters walking into the interview. After this, we only then had 5-10 minutes to make a basic edit and put all of our work together into a interview style.

Below is our quick draft of the workshop we were set:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4seyNX1zHdk

How did it go?


My first thoughts for this task were mixed - I felt excited and motivated to see how much we can film as well as putting it together in a realistic time which some interviews actually are (say on the news for example, as well as feeling pressured considering we had so much to film in such little time.

Nonetheless, I think me and my group generally had the right idea and what we learnt today was evident within our final product. We followed the 3 shot list and included a few actuality shots to help link into the interview. I think we also used the environment we had to work with our interview as well.

However, as predicted seeing as this is our first time filming an interview (and with the time scale), we made a major mistake making the interview not be as effective as planned. Our problem was that when filming the noddy shot, we didn't get the interviewer to ask the questions. Instead, we filmed the whole conversation as master shot instead of breaking up, meaning that the whole conversation was at one angle instead of being split up into the 3 shots.

This shows how mistakes like these can create devastating problems if this was a real project and say if we only had this one chance to make it right.

Of course, we could easily improve our product if we had enough time, as the time scale proved that it pressured us when filming and editing!

Despite this, I felt that this workshop was really useful as I now understand how to actually film an interview now. The 3 shot list makes it seem easy however my group and I needed to make sure that we get each shot individually, and more importantly making sure that the story can be edited!

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