Interviews

This video marks the first time, but we attempted to film anything for this course. The instructions we were given was that we must make a 3-minute (roughly) interview or documentary about ourselves and two other classmates. We were given cameras and boom mikes and we're told how to use them in their basic forms and were then sent off to film in whichever location we would like. Our first-time filming this, we run into a few technical issues with our camera which were unable to be resolved on the day. This meant that we had to film on a different day with a different camera. This run was relatively successful, especially for our first time using this equipment. We took takes from different angles as well as recording the audio. we did however focus the cameras quite poorly but I have learnt from this issue and have improved this skill as shown on my other video on my YouTube channel.

After we had taken these videos, we began exploring Adobe premiere pro and all its features by editing all these different angles and cutting out silences and bits that we did not want/were unhappy with. I also learned how to sync the sound from the boom Microphone with the sound from the camera by utilizing the clap at the start of each video. I also added some background music too keep the viewer occupied and concentrated. I attempted to do some colour grading, but I found this difficult and will be looking into it a lot more for my next project. I believe this work was very successful and I made sure to keep it fast pace as to not let the audience lose focus and get bored. I do think I may have gone a little too fast paced but this was my first attempt using this software so i have learnt from my mistake and beleive this shows my development from the course.

I then uploaded this video onto my YouTube which I have linked here. I have also created a thumbnail for this video from screenshots of our interviews. I made this thumbnail using Adobe Photoshop.

post-production

Making cuts + inserting clips

When I first opened the premiere pro project, I created a window with all of my clips and audio files. I dragged in these video files, synchronized them with the audio captured on the boom microphone, and then used the razor tool to cut out silences and bits I was unhappy with. I have found that I over-did it with the cuts and it is a little too much information at once. in the future, I would keep bits of the video slow so that the viewer could digest what they had just heard/seen. I have since learnt from this and have implemented it in my other piece of work.

Text

To create my titles for each interviewee, I used one of the templates from the 'essential graphics' segment of the menu bar. I then typed in the interviewees name as well as titling it as interview. I wanted to keep this introduction simple and sleek so I left it in black and white with plenty of negative space.

Text animations

Background music

when looking for background music, I explored adobes 'essential sound '. I got my fellow interviewees to choose the music which best matched their personalities. I then added it behind the audio and turned it down to a level of which you could hear the audio of the interviews clearly.

B-Roll

A B-roll is a second load of video containing scenes to do with the subject you are talking about of which you overlay over parts of your interview. As we were in college, the things of which we talked about in our interviews where inaccessible to us. Because of this, we used this as a chance to experiment with the camera settings and take videos such as us walking with different shutter speeds, using pans and tilts, and experimenting with light and dark. To edit this into our interview we dragged the B-Roll files above the parts of our interview that we thought best represented these B-Rolls. I would also cut this down into the length of the clip of the original interview videos. When these overlay videos didn't fit and looked odd cut down, I changed the speed of the video playback to be faster so that I could get most of the clip in with it still being the correct duration. It is also important to remember to remove the audio of your B-roll so that you do not get background noise on top of your interview’s audio.

Color grading

I made the colour-grading warm as to give off a nice vibe of the interviews. colder colour grading does make the viewer see the characters as harsh and cold. warmth is inviting and comforting which gives of a good feeling about the characteristics of the person.

synchronizing sound

to replace the sound from the camera with the sound from the boom microphone, you first have to synchronize both audios. I did this by using the claps we did at the start of every video and audio take. I lined up where the claps are recorded on both audios and then deleted the cameras audio so that it is replaced with the better quality recording from the boom mic.

Charlie St John

Interviews

post-production

Charlie
St John