Evaluation Of My Interview Including Audience Feedback

Using relevant audience feedback, I am now able to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of my interview. To ensure our interview was produced to the best of our abilities, we first had to plan as a group. This included planning; who we would interview, how we could split the work load fairly, what cutaways we would film and a range of camera angles we would try and cover.

We came together as a group and drew out what we thought would be suitable cutaways and what questions we would ask. This gave our group the opportunity to bond and bounce ideas off each other.

The filming process took one lesson. We hired a camera, and together took turns using props to firstly record our interview, and then record our cutaways. We agreed that Chloe would ask the questions for the interview, whilst Natasha used the camera to record myself being interviewed. The filming process was successful for the three of us because we were prepared due to planning what we would film and were we would film it the previous lesson.

Once we had recorded our interviews and cutaways we returned to class to start the editing process. We had planned to split our time equally so we each estimated we would spend around a lesson each in charge of using Adobe Premiere Pro so we could all become familiar with the software. At first we struggled coming to terms with how to use Premiere Pro as it had been years since we last used it, and we had never experienced editing this high tech before. However after some media technician assistance, we started to make good progress and were able to finish our interview for the deadline.

Whilst there was strengths to our interview, there was also some weaknesses, and therefore when everyone had finished their interviews we regrouped as a class and received audience feedback to highlight our success's and see how we could overcome our struggles. We found that the Mise en scene for our interview was good, but could be improved, as the interviewee was positioned infront of a door, so by passers we visable making it look a little unprofessional. A pro that was raised in our audience feedback was that our music bed was relevent in terms of linking to mobile phones as the song we used was Beyonce- Video Phone. Another strength raised of our interview that was raised was the fact that the interviewee looked at the interviewer throughout the interview and answered the questions correctly by using part of the question as their answer.

Although our cutaways appeared to be good ideas, they were some times too short for the audience who hadn't seen the interview before to understand, for example the cutaway were I was filmed unwrapping a birthday present which was a mobile phone. Therefore in future myself and my fellow group members now know to make them longer to ensure our interview is entertaining and easy to understand. Finally in terms of cutaways, there were no "jumps" in the interview as we successfully placed cutaways over the end and the beginning of two different questions to create a smooth running video.

All in all the interview worked well and was successfully framed, however the sound quality was not brilliant, so in future I now know I need to use a microphone to record the interview in order for it to be successful.

To conclude, I am proud of our first efforts of recording and editing an interview, considering we had never done something similar before. I took negative feedback fairly and will use it in future to ensure my work is completed to the best of my ability.

Screengrabs Of Editing & A Discussion Of The Software

Using Adobe Premiere Pro seemed quite dawnting at first as it was my first time using the software for a long time. My group and I seemed to have forgotten the way it worked and "what was where", but after a media assistant was able to spend a lesson with us, we started to make good progress. All three of us had a go at editing and soon realised that if we wanted our interview to run smoothly, we would have to place our cutaways overlapping two questions to prevent "jump cuts". Overall we spent around 3 lessons editing our interview, giving us roughly a lesson each to take charge of the software. We found it difficult to add a musicbed to our interview, but after seeking help we eventually had guidance of how to do so and will be able to remember the new knowledge we have now picked up for the next time we come to use it.

Plans For Cutaways

As in the interview my group and I had planned to ask 14 questions, we thought it was a sensible idea to have an equal amount of cutaways. We brainstormed and listened to each other's ideas on how the cutaways should be relevant to the question they are placed with. For example when the interviewee mentioned in their answer that they mainly get mobile phones for their birthday, Chloe and Natasha recorded myself unwrapping paper which said "Happy Birthday" to find a mobile phone.
Below are a list of cutaways which we used;

* The colour pink as the interviewee says their phone is pink.
* Unwrapping a birthday present (mobile) as the interviewee explained they mainly get mobile phones for their birthday.
* A close up of a girl texting on her phone using standard english, as the interviewee told us she does not use text language.
* A cutaway of two girls sitting back to back smiling and texting to illustrate how easy it is to stay in touch with friends via mobiles.
* A dollyshot of several mobile phones placed on the floor in a circle to illustrate that the interviewee has had a lot of mobile phones.
* A shot of several pieces of paper each saying a day of the week to show that the interviewee texts every day.
* A close up of two phone top up vouchers and £10 to go with the question, "How much does your phone cost you a month?"
* Another shot of two girls sitting at a table texting their friends.
* A shot of the interviewee's phone to show what they are talking about.
* A shot of the interviewee's phone ringing so the audience can hear her ringtone.
* A cutaway of someone signing a thumbs up to match what the interviewee is saying the best thing about having a mobile phone is.
* Similarly, a shot of someone signing thumbs down to match what the interviewee is saying the worst thing about having a mobile phone is.
* And finally, a shot with a Samsung Genio and a Blackberry to illustrate when the interview says people always have better phones than you.