- Home
- How to Light
- How to Interview
- How to Edit
- Field Production
- Post Production
- Finished Web Movies
|
- Two of the most common problems: bad sound, soft focus
- Make sure you have multiple cutaway shots to cover all your interview edits
- Interviews should have short concise sound bites that make points. Don't let them rattle everything off in one uneditable chunk. You want solid, self-contained points that you can easily shuffle and organize into your project.
- Room tone - 15 to 20 seconds, with and without the air conditioner on, and not just limited to someone's office, if you interviewed somebody on location, you may find location room tone invaluable also.
- One never shoots as much b-roll as they think. You will always need more coverage. If you think that a shot is not good enough, shoot it anyway. Tape is cheap, and you probably will never be there again. Remember, 4 or 5 poor shots dissolved together with music is a MONTAGE!
- Don't rush to ask your next question, your audio will trample over the end of their response and the take will become unusable.
- When you get a weak answer, rephrase and ask the question again. Make sure they answer in a complete sentence.
- LISTEN! What are they saying when they answer the question? Is this useable? Are they talking on the correct subject? Have they used jargon that no one will understand? Did they mumble or burp in the middle? Don't wait until you are thousands of miles away to realize you screwed up.
- We still get tapes with broken timecode, all the time. The only time this is a problem is when there is not enough pre-roll before the shot.
- Natural sound adds volumes to your project, and you always ask me to be sure to put it in, so don't ruin it by standing next to the microphone jabbering about where your going for lunch.
- If there is a list of items, don't let the interviewee rattle them off in 3 seconds flat. You will want to show each of these things, so say each item separately. Better yet, write an informative sentence for each. Instead of just "Basil", say, "We decided to add 1/2 teaspoon of basil to give the dish flavor and zest."
- If your camera is not on a tripod, then your picture is wobbly.
- No talking during significant natural sound like blenders, grill sizzle, and chopping.
- Don't move the camera off of a person when they are doing something. Even if what they are doing is not so interesting. You may find yourself in an editing situation where you have NOTHING, at which time you will be so desperate, that a shot of a person sorting acorns into piles will be perfect.
- Before or after the interview, get a shot of the person smiling and listening. This works great to cover the part: "We spoke with Fred Friendly, a leading authority on acorns....."
- Make sure the first thing people say is a WORD. Don't let people start their sentences with "uuummm...." or "uuuhhhhhhh..." or "Well..." or "OK...." We can't always edit that out, and they sound like hicks.
- Hats fall off kids that have to dance or do any kind of choreography, so keep that in mind.
- Shoot your subject against the sun and you have a high contrast silhouette; you are only allowed to have one of these per interview. Keep your back to the sun or the central light source.
- Audience reaction shots - No backs of heads, get to the side or better yet the front. Get individuals, get 3-4 people talking together, get wide shots of everyone. You will need every shot.
- Don't "just get b-roll". This attitude creates hurried footage that is difficult to work with. Continue to plan and frame specific shots.
- Don't let your interviewee repeat verbatim what your lead in voice-over just said. Interview bites are to add, augment and clarify. If necessary, reword your voice-over.
- Whatever the interviewee talks about you will need to show.
- Where are your interviewees eyes? Darting around? Transfixed into the camera lens?
- Keep a running log of each tape and of which takes were good and which were bad. The information is fresh in your mind right there and then. By the time you get all 12 of your tapes in the edit suite, it becomes difficult to remember off the top of your head where things are.
- Stop an interview that is not making any sense. Stop, regroup, and rephrase the questions. You will not be happy with the results if you to try edit a person so that they sound coherent.
- Be careful with "pickups". If the talent is reading from a script, then it cuts fine. However, in an an interview, the interviewee doesn't always get the specific words right and the edited sentence can sound, well..., edited.
- When shooting a scene with multiple actors, try shooting the individuals first, then shoot the wide master. This will give additional time for people to become familiar with their lines and cues.
- Listen for paper rustling when anyone is reading from a script.
- Inflection Patrol!! Sometimes an interviewee looses their train of though and ends the sentence with a rising inflection. There is a little nagging voice in our head that says something wasn't quite right, but we don't know what, yet we keep the take because they actually said what needed to be said. Heed that voice. Run the line again. Sentences need to end with a downward inflection.
|