Interview Experience Experimentation
For fun, I decided to showcase my grandfather’s participation in World War II, interviewing him about his experience of being in the Navy. For this interview I wanted to capture him in an environment that was natural, and real, somewhere I feel would incorporate the reality of life and the part of which war could be closely related to, as well as something calm, and not distracting. I chose the interview to be in his backyard, the trees and vegetation performed for the most part quite well, however not perfectly, but for this project I would consider to be a successful example.
In the interview I chose to make him the main focus of the video, I preferred not to be in the actual finished cut. Using two cameras to give a variation of angles I used about four or five lights to work against the sunset. I had two ground lights, one on his right the other his left, a key light next to the camera, and a fill light. I felt a backlight was not necessary because of the sunlight against the trees.
Interviews, quite frankly, can be hard to make interesting no matter who your subject is or what the interview is over unless something breaks the common standard, it becomes easily predictable and second nature to everyone and their mother’s mother. I wanted to try something a little different, I found an idea through watching a trivia show on TV called Cash Cab:
I thoroughly enjoyed the creative idea behind this show, most trivia game shows on television are extremely common, so much so that there are channels devoted specifically to trivia game shows. This one however is on wheels, a different medium than standard, and I decided to try my own mobile set up in my Jeep, instead of a trivia game, it was a sports interview.
A three camera setup was best, one camera was installed to the dash on the passenger (Brad), the other was zip tied to the passenger side visor and angled on the driver (Me), and the third camera was placed on a tripod and seat belted in to the backseat, to give a view of both Brad and myself as well as a little view of the road ahead while we drove. I would not suggest anyone try this, it took several attempts to get it right, and safely, but it turned a lot of heads and was quite fun.
When editing this sequence together, the three cameras were not recording simultaneously through one synced feed, they were all running independently bringing on a little time of rendering. I had to sync all three shots manually, I feel although it was a little timely, the fun and experience made it worth it!
