Evaluation

To help us film and edit our own documentary interview we had an understanding of the codes and conventions that featured in existing products. With this understanding we then tried to apply the conventions to our own interviews.
The strengths of our interview are mainly within the cutaways that we used to break up the interview. These cutaways were all relevant to the topic of the interview as they all featured mobile phones and how they are used. Also the soundtrack that we used for the interview was a good choice as it was an instrumental track so there was no lyrics to distract the viewers attention.
There were many weaknesses in our interview. Firstly the framing of the interview was not correct. The interviewee was positioned to the right of the screen but was also looking to the right. This means that the interviewer was standing on the wrong side of the camera and should be standing on the right of the camera. Also the rule of thirds was not followed correctly and resulted in too much space above the interviewees head. Another weakness is in the cutaways. A few of the cutaways we filmed had jump cuts in them meaning that we had made a mistake in the editing of the film.
Overall we made a lot of mistakes in the filming and editing of our interview. We were also unsuccessful in applying many of the conventions in our own interview. However we will be able to look back and evaluate the improvement from this interview to our final documentary.

Interview

Editing

This is a screen grab of the editing software Adobe Premiere Pro that I used to edit my video


This is the title designer tool that i used to create the title for the video

This is the tool i used to record the cutaways so that i would be able to insert and edit them into the final video

Filming

For the interview we used a medium close up of our interviewee and framed her using the rule of thirds in which the interviewees eyeline is roughly a third of the way down the screen. The interviewee is positioned to right side of the screen as they would in any conventional documentary with the interviewer standing at the side of the camera. We filmed the interview with a white wall behind the interviewee so that the mise-en-scene would not be distracting for the viewer.
For our cutaways we filmed various clips that related to the topic of mobile phones. We filmed a clip that started with an extreme close up of buttons on a mobile phone which then zoomed out to reveal a wider shot of multiple phones. Another clip we filmed was a medium shot of a person talking on their mobile phone. We also had two clips which featured a close up of a mobile screen, one receiving a text and another showing the phones contacts.

Codes And Conventions Of Filming And Editing Interviews

• Questions never shown - Edited out
• Mid shot of interviewees
• Mise-en-scene of background - relevant to topic
• Cuts to archive footage + Photographs
• Interviewees sat to one side of the screen - positionng. If more than one interviewee it alternates
• Cuts between different interviewees talking about same subject
• Presenter - Direct Address
• Interview people in street
• Interviewees filmed in medium shot, medium close up or close up
• Name and relevance to topic for each interviewee - graphics
• Positioning of interviewer is important. If the interviewee is on the right of the frame then the interviewer is on the left of the camera - sit as close to the camera as possible
• Framing follows rule of thirds - eyeline of interviewee roughly a third of the way down the screen
• Interviews are never filmed with a light source behind the interviewee
• Cutaways - illustrate what they're talking about - either archive, suggested

In class we watched existing examples of documentarys and listed the conventions that we saw to be featured in the filming and editing of interviews.

Interviewees all sat down