Interview Preparation

Something that was definitely important for me was to look presentable. Why should I expect my interviewee to make the effort to look and be professional when I am not? I also wanted to show that I was serious about this and that to me this wasn't just a school project.

The most important preparation was coming up with good questions. Just like Andrew Denton in Lamble's (2011, pp. 110) News as it happens: An Introduction to Journalism said, “I prepare questions very carefully – and not just each individual questions, but the 'flow' of an interview.” I had to think about what questions would give me the answers I wanted. Not only that, but also think about the possible answers I could receive. If my interviewee gave me an amazing answer but I didn't know or have a follow up question, then I could have potentially missed a path of even more depth for my story. This isn't to say that you can predict everything that they would say, or even that you should rely solely on premeditated questions. Even just listening to their answers in my limited experience has given me great questions to ask. The answers to which I have used in other journalism article assignments.

This all of course leads to having great research. Without having researched what my topic is about, what my interviewee has to do with it and what potential break throughs I could make there really would be no point of coming up with any questions at all. I may as well go there and ask what my interviewees name is, when they were born and what time they go to bed at night. Sure it may be interesting to some people, but does it really have anything to do with what story content I want? I started thinking through some possible questions and doing some research on blood donations, what the donated blood is used for and what people thought about it on the internet. Mostly I thought about what would effect my interviewee. For my second interview, I interviewed a girl who had experience with blood donations and transfusions. I thought, what does she relate to? What situations has she been in that have involved the Red Cross? From there I started to come up with questions about her work, what she thought was important and why she stopped donating blood.

References

 

Lamble, S 2011, News As It Happens: An Introduction To Journalism, Oxford, New York.

 

Interview Method

 An important method with interviewing is making the person you're interviewing feel comfortable. Giving them a sense that they can trust you is important, just as Mark Kermode, an experienced film journalist relays. “Indeed, even the most gregarious interviewee will hesitate, stumble, or reconsider if properly questioned by someone whom they trust and (perhaps most importantly) respect.” he said, when discussing how to open an interviewee up and getting them to give answers that are not just well rehearsed.

I found that having a decent conversation with them before the interview really opened them up. It made them feel comfortable and gave them a different perspective in that it revealed to them that I wasn't just out to trip them up. That I was a real person. When I chatted to my PR student that I was going to interview, it really put her to ease. She went from being extremely nervous and worried, to comfortable and open. It more importantly stopped her from feeling the need to be defensive in her answers.

Another important interview method I experienced was listening to their answers. I found that I got a lot of great answers from follow up questions. It also gave the interviewee the opportunity to delve more into their answer and bring the point that they wanted across. This is of course assuming that you're not trying to uncover a truth that they are trying to hide.

References

 

Kermode, M 2008, 'The Recalcitrant Interviewee', Cinema Journal, no. 2, pp. 135-141.

 

Writing For TV

 Writing for TV was definitely a challenge. I found myself having to constantly remind myself not to add too much description. Also having to match my script to visual shots was a challenge. You obviously don't want to completely distract the viewer from what you are saying but at the same time, you don't want to bore them to death. With the help of a visual aid, timing is also really important. Timing, vision and words must all become in sync. (Lamble 2011)

When it came to writing the script, my assignment partner and I became stuck on how to start. We weren't really sure if we should write a script first and then add images to it or if we should start editing first and then add some script in later. We decided to ask for some advice from Warren, one of the tech guys that has had a lot of experience in the media. He advised us that it would be a better idea to pick what grabs we wanted first and then write a script around that. After all, we didn't want to write a script and find that it's too long to fit into the package. It definitely helped doing my first video news story on blood. That way it was almost impossible to pick less serious cover shots. I think if I had of done the story on the RSPCA I probably would have found myself filming cute puppies and kittens which would have taken away from the potential seriousness of the story. The last thing I wanted was the lines between entertainment and news to be blurred.

References

Lamble, S 2011, News As It Happens: An Introduction To Journalism, Oxford, New York.

 

Improving Your Editing Skills

 Going into editing I wasn't overly confident as I'm used to final cut x not the version that is used in the university computer laboratories. Thankfully, we went over the basics in class, which refreshed my memory on how to do basic cutting and moving around. Doing this assignment though helped me understand how to change colour. Our footage we filmed for our PR interview with the representative from the red cross was quite dark as it was filmed inside a dark office and I was having lighting issues with the camera (mentioned in my previous post about improving camera skills). So we had to brighten up the footage so that it didn't look like a silhouette of someone, like those people dishing the dirt on their bosses on programs like A Current Affair. Colour correction is also an extremely important tool for creating a polished finish product. It creates a high-quality finishing product that is good enough for broadcasting (Van Hurkman & DigitalFilm Tree 2006).

I started to improve on my colour corrector skills, mainly through practice and a little bit of trial and error. I found that desaturating the image a little helped match some of the clips. Something new I had never tried before was adding in writing or a title into the clip. It was frustrating at first trying to get the hang of it but after a while I found it easier to do and extremely effective. Even some of the basic things like cutting clips and sticking them into the time line without putting everything out of sync was a big step for me. I honestly found that mastering the more basic tools made it easier to learn some more advanced tools and manipulators. It also made the experience more enjoyable.

References

 

Van Hurkman, A & DigitalFilm Tree 2006, Advanced Color Correction and Effects in Final Cut Pro 5, Peachpit Press, California.

 

Improving Your Camera Skills

While I had used a camera before in a previous class, I was still extremely rusty and was very unsure of myself when it came to using one. It was not until class when we started going over the basics that I started to overcome my fear of this expensive piece of equipment. It was just like Johanna E. Katchen said when talking about the reluctance of using a camera, you should realise that “a video camera is just a machine.” One that I could successfully operate with enough practice.

My partner on my assignment and I took out the camera and started practising with it. We started pretending we were doing interviews and a mock piece to camera. We started to gain more confidence. As I went to my first interview, the setting up took a little bit longer then I would have hoped. Luckily my interviewee was extremely understanding. I had the focusing right, the white balance was looking great, the shot of her was in frame perfectly. There was one problem. The lighting was horrible. For some reason, no matter how much light we put on her, not matter how many curtains we opened or how high I put the gain, it was dark. And to make matters worse, the camera was flashing a ¼ sign, indicating that I needed to put the filter on. I didn't because I thought that was ridiculous, it was way too dark already. Needless to say when I got to the editing room and looked at the footage, it was so dark it was just about unusable. So I talked to the brilliant tech guys that lent out the cameras and he soon explained to me that the iris was probably closed too much and that was why it was so dark. From then on I learnt my lesson and the images were no longer dark. I started to become a lot faster at setting up the equipment and now feel extremely confident with the camera. It all just came down to practice.

References

Katchen, JE 1991, 'Using the Video Camera to Improve Speaking and Performance Skills', Papers from the eighth conference on English language teaching and learning in the Republic of China, no. 8, pp. 531-540.

Chasing Leads and Sources

My partner Cassidy and I chose to do our story on Red Cross blood donations. One of the most important objectives we and Lamble (2011, pp. 127) had was to have an official and reliable source of information. The most reliable source was finding someone from the Red Cross itself. Initially finding the phone number was not hard. I went onto the website site and gave it a call. I found that as soon as I ended my introduction of myself I was politely transferred straight away to a different person. This happened about four times until I reached Sally Gavin, the PR representative for the Red Cross Blood Drive. She was extremely helpful on the phone, asking what kind of person I was after. Was I after a donor? Or was I after a particular expert. After explaining my case and what kind of information I asked, she nominated herself as being the right person for the job. First interview booked and organised.

After the first interview with Sally Gavin, we derived questions from there. We listened to her answers and found the lead we wanted to go with. Which lead us to deciding who we should interview next and what we should interview them about.

For my second source, acquiring an interview with someone was a lot harder. I decided to contact Sally again to see if it was possible to acquire a blood donor through her but unfortunately she was too busy to find one. After talking to a few different people I tried to find a regular donor or someone who needed a blood transfusion. The first girl I contacted had needed a blood transfusion for a heart operation she had. Unfortunately after the initial contact she was unreachable after that. Perhaps she was too uncomfortable to speak on camera about her operation. The person I contacted next was very helpful and I quickly organised an interview with her.

References

Lamble, S 2011, News As It Happens: An Introduction To Journalism, Oxford, New York.