This is the first time that I have interviewed someone. I have been interviewed before from drama class, but have never done the interviewing or the editing aspect of it. One of the things that I could have done better is picking another location to do the interview. When I interviewed Matt, he kind of blended into the wall behind him. I could have fixed that by lighting him better beforehand. But, I was able to fix this problem on Final Cut Pro with the saturation tool. This was also my first time adding B-Roll. I think that it went okay, but I could definitely make it better the next time I do it. I want to maybe add more videos to the B-Roll instead of just a lot of pictures. Being the interviewer was kind of nerve-wracking because it was surprisingly really hard to come up with questions to ask. This was also my first time really editing something. It was honestly not as bad as I thought it would be though. It was kind of hard for me to make the transitions between each scene flow smoothly, especially at the beginning. You can hear a shift in sound in the first three shots, and next time I want to make the scenes flow better. 

This is my interview that Kacper did of me. I Have been interviewed before because of drama class, but this was an interesting way to be interviewed because I knew more about what was going on. Being interviewed is always awkward because you are in the spot light of questions and are just sitting there with a camera in your face. I think that something I can work on in future interviews is not moving too much and keeping my eyes center. I realized that I kept moving my eyes around a lot. Another thing that I can work on is remembering to start each of my answers with repeating the question being asked. 

This is the first interviewed I DP'd. I thought that overall the way that the interview went was pretty well done. One thing that I would change is the angle of the shot because that way I could get more depth out of the shot instead of having the shot more front. I would also change the location because if I do, then I could have better lighting. For this one, I would also have better lighting because there is not fantastic lighting in this interview. Other than that, I thought that it wasn't horrible.

This was the second interview where I was being interviewed by Lillie. I think that this time around, it was better because I remembered to start each of my responses with the question. I do think that in the future, I still need to work on not moving when there is an uncomfortable silence. I realized that I did that in the middle of answering one of my questions, and hope that I was not out of frame for that shot. I think that I also did a better job of keeping my eyes more center rather than moving them around a lot.  I do think that this was a better interview for me because of how I responded to the questions. I think that overall, my responses were the best that they could be because they were on the spot. 

This is also Lillie's interview where I was DP. This was the second interview that I DP'd and I think that it went a lot better the second time around. The shots were a lot better set up and there was better usage of lighting the second time around. Instead of having the shots more face on, I angled the camera more on an angle to give the shot more depth compared to the first time.

Vocabulary

B-Roll - are pictures or videos that you put over the interview

Video Server - A device dedicated to sending videos to people or computers in the room.

Rule of thirds - this is how you decide how to film someone. You use an imaginary tic-tac-toe board to match their face up with the boxes to get a better shot.

Where are the lights and light stands? - The lights are placed on the shelf as you walk into the classroom and the light stands are placed in the green screen room.

Where do the batteries get charged when you are finished? - On the table to the left of the couch.

JVC HM100 - a handheld camera that is used mostly for news reports and for producers.

Lavalier Mic (Lav Mic) - A small microphone that you clip to the intervee’s shirt to get better sound.

Canon T3I - has higher effective iso and more telephoto lense

Canon T5I - a touch screen camera with more cross - type AF performance, faster raw shooting, and bigger JPEG buffer.

Director of Photography (DP) - The person that decides what the shot is going to look like.

Dissolve or fade - a dissolve is a transition that gradually goes from one scene to another. Fade is the first part of the dissolve.

Editing - what you do to make the different shots come together to make a movie.

Editor - The person that does the editing

Lower thirds - It is a text box so that you can write the person’s name or occupation in the lower left corner of the shot.

Shoe / Quick Release plate - This is what you connect the camera to to connect it to the tripod.

Transform - the product of cutting clips

Ken Burns effect - zooming into an image to make an effect in a video

Documentary Review

The documentary that I watched was called “First Position.” It is a dance documentary about six young ballet students from all over the world that are training to compete in the Youth America Grand Prix competition. At this competition, different dance schools and companies from different parts of the world come and look for new dancers that they think will have the best potential at their dance school. However, something that always comes in the way of a dancer’s training is getting an injury and not being able to dance. This documentary will take you through all of the six ballet student’s auditions and what their experience is like even if it includes an injury.

I honestly loved this documentary. I am a dancer, specifically trained in ballet, so watching this documentary helped me to look at my dance skills with a more critical eye and make them better. I thought that the whole plot of having six main dancers be the main storyline for this film was really cool for this storyline. I thought that it was really cool how the cameras got pretty close the the actual stage when the dancers were performing. There were even cameras behind the stage and showed the dancers getting ready before going on stage to perform and their reactions after their dances were done. Because dance is a performance, most of the lighting came from the stage. I was impressed that the cameras were able to pick up as well of footage as they did without the excess lights because the auditorium was so dark. The film had B-roll during the interview portions of the film of the six dancers training at their ballet schools and dancing around their homes. The A-roll in the film was the interviews and the performance shots. There was this one really cool shot that had a fisheye effect to it, and I’m pretty sure that they used the 8mm lense for that particular shot.

I would definitely recommend this documentary to people, especially dancers, because the concept of this whole documentary was just so fascinating to watch. For me, it was really intriguing to see the different kinds of dances that were being performed as well as having the suspense of figuring out who won and who got accepted into the dance schools. When watching this documentary, you really get to know the dancers on some level and hope for the best when it comes down to award time. It was also really cool for me to see the passion in each of the six dancers and how much they gave up in order to be able to dance. There was this one story of a girl who was adopted, and her story of becoming a ballerina was so inspiring to watch. In conclusion, I think that people will really enjoy watching this film.