Shooting for the interview was quite different from our other projects we have done in class. It is a lot more difficult in my opinion, because you can’t control what the person is going to say and how they are going to say it. It’s hard to get good clean sentences, especially to open and close the interview video. However, I did enjoy asking questions and getting to hear the responses. It was hard to think of questions that would result in the most interesting information, but I found that just a few good questions allowed for the interviewee to expand on them quite a bit. I also found slight difficulty in shooting a variety of different shots of the actual hobby. Because the hobby I am interviewing about is jigsaw puzzle-building, it is mostly just sitting at a table trying to find pieces. I did my best to match what I was recording to what was said in the interview, but I feel I struggled with getting more interesting shots that didn’t look like every other one. 

I think I did well with setting up the interview shots themselves, with the positioning and lighting. I tried to utilize what I had. I found an old ring light, but it was quite bright so I ended up using a dim lamp to counteract the dark shadows it casted like we learned in class. 

Audio wise, I struggled the most. I don’t have a microphone, so I attempted to use a secondary phone to record the audio closer up. However, the phone I used was a bit older than mine, so the audio sounded much worse than the one that came from the one recording the video. Because of that, my audio is not as clear as I wanted it to be. Still, I did my best to utilize premiere pro’s noise reduction effects and clean it up the best I could. Next time I will definitely be testing my audio recorder before I use it.

34:15-36:48

Faron has been issued death threats by local drug dealers, so he moves back home. In this clip, he says he’s not scared, just worried. He also talks about how no matter what, if he runs or not, they will likely find him, and he really just shrugs it off. His words give a sense of hopelessness and anxiety that the visual evidence helps convey through his actions and body language. We see him putting on his old Amish church clothes, reminiscing on past interactions and questioning his religious choices. We see him cleaning, going through his cassette tapes, like he is trying to distract himself. His body language is fidgety and slow, the way he talks with long pauses and distant stares. The contradictions between his words and actions make you feel as though he is trying to put on a brave face, pretend that he doesn’t care, but is actually scared about what could happen. 

We then see dark clips of the view from inside a moving car of farms, which then cuts to Faron looking out the window while smoking. This, I believe, is likely dramatization, as the clips suggest that Faron is specifically looking out at the barns, while we have no actual way of knowing what he is looking at. Still, it conveys a feeling of “what if” from Faron, like he is in major turmoil over his choices. Seeing it as it is shot, Faron looks out at grassy fields and barns, reminiscent of Amish culture we have previously seen in the film. Faron stares out the window while smoking a cigarette, something that contradicts Amish culture itself. It showcases that this is his life now, but also possible regret and longing for what was.  

For this interview assignment and as of now I plan to interview my friend who works at a bakery and just getting some information on her role there and how she got into it. This idea is not set in stone but thats what seems the most practical.

While I have not yet shot any content yet I am still in the preproduction phase where I am planning out how I am going to set it up. I’ve struggled with choosing someone to interview and trying to figure out how I would supply visual evidence, as it might be hard to get that especially going into the work environments and shooting video isn’t the easiest. Moving forward into this following week i’m hoping I can get some good content and continue to build on this assignment.

Hello class, I have not yet shot the interview and B-roll but have been working on the preproduction process. I’ll be interviewing a friend who works in the Vancouver mall. I’ve had many conversations with him and a central reoccurring theme – in his work and life – seems to be loneliness. The mall he works at is almost completely inactive and so I think a good piece of visual evidence would be to long static shots of empty mall concourse as the subject speaks. In speaking to my friend, I’ve discovered that he is dissatisfied with his job but is hesitant to say it explicitly. After asking him how long he’d been there, he paused for a moment and then said “Too long man… too long”. I think this would be a good line to overdub on the visual evidence of an empty mall.

-Luca Wagner

My original plans of interviewing either my friend who works at an escape room or my other friend who works for the Lloyd Center ice rink fell through, so I used my sister as an interviewer since her hobby is fairly straight forward to film.

Blog: Create a 30-second sequence that uses at least three Premiere effects or that delves into the possibilities of AI Cinema using RunwayML and any other AI tools. Apply these effects to video either for story or for abstract experimentation. The point of this assignment is to play with techniques and see if certain effects can be used to generate ideas for a final project.

For this project, I focused on effects in Premiere Pro, using tools like digital glitch, curvature, and wave warp. These effects help express a character’s thoughts or emotions by distorting the visuals. For example, wave warp can mimic dizziness or nausea, while digital glitches suggest confusion or anxiety. This pulls the audience deeper into the character’s experience.

Unlike traditional cinema, which focuses on capturing reality, digital effects create a more subjective world. They allow filmmakers to represent what a character feels, not just what’s physically there. These techniques blur the line between reality and emotion, offering new ways to engage viewers by combining visual storytelling with personal perspective.

I have not yet filmed my interview, however, I have some fairly concrete ideas of how I will go about doing it. I plan to use a wireless lav mic to capture clear audio instead of just the built in camera microphone. Along with that I plan to use a portable light to help keep the lighting conditions consistent; even if clouds are moving in the sky changing the natural lighting, the scene should stay relatively stable. One of the main things I’m keeping in mind is keeping questions within the scope of things that are able to be filmed for B-Roll.

Do: Work on a rough cut of your job/hobby profile. We will critique in class.

Blog: Make a post discussing your experience of shooting the job/hobby profile. Were there any challenges? What worked well?

If you have not yet shot the interview and B-roll, how do you intend to shoot it. What will you ask? What visual evidence will you capture?

Interview with Alex Speaks – Hobby: Cheerleading

Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/abbynoise/mood-of-summer
License code: 9QHKW9H35NX0KZFQ

Blog Prompt : The challenge with any documentary is capturing the “visual evidence” for a meaningful narrative made out of fragments of video.  Search for a scene in Devil’s Playground (below) that has visual evidence for the central question of the documentary: Amish or English? Describe the visual evidence. Is it effective? Might parts of the scene be staged? How can you tell? What other scenes stand out for you (use screen grabs) and why?  How does visual evidence help with the storytelling? Are there times when the visual evidence is in conflict with the need to tell an engaging story? 

One scene, in particular, felt obviously staged: when the main character is openly using “drugs” in the living room. If they were serious about turning their life around, it’s hard to believe they would incriminate themselves so easily. On top of that, based on what I’ve seen in crime documentaries, the bag of drugs looked fake—more like the stuffing you’d find in a Beanie Baby than anything real. This raises a key issue with documentaries: balancing truthful visual evidence with the need to tell a compelling story.

Documentaries often rely on bits and pieces of footage to create a meaningful narrative, but scenes like this make it hard to tell if what we’re seeing is real or staged for effect. In the fiml Devil’s Playground, certain scenes seem set up to highlight the film’s central question: will the characters choose the Amish way of life or the English world? In this case, the drug scene feels like it was added just to create drama. While it makes the story more entertaining, it also risks making the film seem less believable.

This shows how documentary filmmakers sometimes struggle between telling an engaging story and staying true to reality. When scenes feel exaggerated or fake, it can make viewers doubt the truth of what they’re seeing. Documentaries work best when real moments guide the story, but when filmmakers add too much drama, it can feel more like entertainment than an honest portrayal.

The filming for my interview was not what envisioned at all unfortunately. For this project I decide to record my sister and her new floristry business as she’s been excited about it and I though it would be a fun video. The major setback for this was the lighting available to me where we shot. It was incredibly gloomy outside and her lighting inside the home was extremely dim. She only has overhead lighting and it’s very orange and unflattering for any sort of filming. Im hoping through editing I can bring some light into the clips more but I am unsure of how to do that exactly so we will see once I start compiling everything.

Aside from the lighting the other aspects were okay. The questions were well though out and her answers were genuine and entertaining but she was a little unprepared so the the interview section looks a bit unprofessional. The only part I’m content with was my B-roll. I got a lot of shots of her building her bouquet, and of the materials and close ups of her hands doing the work. A possibility I might refilm what I have but we will see.