After practicing interviews, I changed roles to being a producer to focus on Pre-Production. I was in charge of creating a storyboard for the interviews that features students from different classes in the Art, Design and Media Centre of Stockport College. I have also helped with creating a production schedule as well as getting my classmates to print location recces, release forms and risk assessments, writing questions to ask students in the interviews, and creating a call sheet.
Storyboard
For context, the storyboard will feature a sequence where the photographer will follow the first interview subject until they go into the filming studio with an over the shoulder shot before setting the camera on a tripod where it can focus on the subject sitting down and answering the question that either myself or my classmates ask.
Plan
For our promotional video at Stockport College, I have helped create a plan along with my classmates as to what our promotional video should include, in comparison to other promotional videos in places like Manchester Metropolitan University for example. The final product should hopefully inspire students to join us at Stockport College and study their chosen subject in the university centre.
Roles
My class has discussed their roles for what they will be doing for the promotional video and we have written down what each role will be doing in contribution to creating the promotional video and the paperwork that needs to be filled in such as a location recce, risk assessment, booking forms for equipment, call sheet, production schedule and script for voice over (member of staff can help with voice overs).
I have agreed to create a storyboard for the interviews with camera directions, help contribute towards creating the production schedule and aid with sound for the equipment as the producer.
Oliver has agreed to fill and print the location recce and risk assessment, be in charge of managing the lighting in the studio, and find music for the promotional video.
Tom has agreed to collect footage of the interview, back up the footage onto the computer, assemble the footage and add sound/music for the promotional video as DIT/editor.
Ethan has agreed to print release forms and booking forms for equipment as well as recording B Roll, ready for editing the promotional video.
Lastly, Andrew has agreed to aid with the storyboard, create the production schedule with myself, and set up cameras on a tripod when we are filming the interviews.
Schedule
Monday: the class finished pre-production, printed out the forms, began filming B Roll inside and outside the university centre and sourced our interviews ready until Thursday.
Tuesday: we begin interviewing staff from different classes in the studio using the provided equipment and learn to remove the green screen in Adobe Premiere Pro.
Wednesday: we begin interviewing students from different classes with the same equipment, except they are given different questions to answer for their interviews and we film more B Roll in the main area of Stockport College.
Thursday: two of our crew volunteers to go in to set up the studio and finish staff and student interviews before filming footage of students working in their respective classes.
Friday: we submit our pre-production material before we begin filming any missing footage, editing mistakes out of our footage, inserting music, removing the green screen, etc.
Setting up in the studio
Taping the green screen to the wall reduces the amount of creases.
The lighting is set up to brighten the green screen so that the shadows are less visible and makes it easier to edit out after the interviews.
The sound level is adjusted correctly to make sure the microphone on top of the camera picks up our voices without it being too loud or too quiet.
The windshield for the microphone is optional to reduce background noise and a chair is positioned opposite where the interviewer will sit to ask the questions to create a conversation away from the camera instead of looking directly at the camera.
Filming Interviews
The interviewer (Andrew) asks questions to members of staff and students which is recorded at two different angles, can take multiple attempts, and mistakes will be edited out afterwards. In this case, staff are given different questions to students e.g how can students apply for courses they are interested in?
The rest of the crew (excluding myself) operates the cameras and gives signals to show they are ready to begin the interview. For the interview, Oliver is given paper with the first take of the interview to put in front of the camera to help us identify when it starts which makes editing the interview easier.
In lesson, I have learnt to set up a green screen (that will be replaced by a background, only keeping the subject), the lights (to eliminate shadows so it will be easier to crop out the green screen when editing the footage), sound levels (to pick up voices without it being too loud or too quiet), and windshield (which is placed over a microphone that is attached to the top of the camera to help reduce background noise).
Jamie Norris 