Interview Evaluation

What went well? 

Throughout this interview our interviewer (Rob) used many techniques in order to keep Tim (our interviewee) Feeling comfortable and open to answer each question as much as he could. Our group feel that the interview was in an informal tone, as the dialogue shows that it was very colloquial and not serious, we feel that this tactic was a very useful to gain the best answers from our questions we generated. This interview contained only open ended questions, which we feel are better than closed questions, as you can gain more knowledge about the subject (Tim) which gives a larger insight to what his own opinions are on the Van Susans group.


Throughout the interview there didn't seem to be any stalling from either Rob (the interviewer) and Tim (the interviewee) We feel that this shows a great success in how the questions were presented to Tim, and that he felt comfortable to answer each one with confidence and depth. Our group also feel that the filming throughout the interview was smoothly done. For some of the responses given the camera would zoom into Tim's face more to possibly capture any emotion shown. This was shown when the question about how he felt leaving the Van Susans, we were possibly hoping to see him show some sort of emotion like stuttering.

Even Better if?

First and foremost the first main issue we had was with the sound in the interview. We decided to add shots of Tim playing his guitar to show his own skill. However the mic could have picked up a lot more of the sound that we had. Or we could have possibly asked Tim to use an amplifier, however we could have used a boom mic which would have picked up a better sound quality but the Boom mic was broken.

Another large problem that we encountered after we had our first viewing of the interview. This was the mise-en-scene throughout the interview, this could have been of a much higher standard, we acclaimed our group would reserve a good music room in order to suit the style of the interviews subject (music) However you could see that not much musical related equipment was placed in the shot, aside from the neck of a guitar. The reason for this was because Tim had a schedule to keep with helping a student with his music coursework, this didn't give us much time to set up the mise en scene to suit the musical elements of the interview (the image above and below shows a good clear view of the mise en scene which was rather poor) We could have placed Tim in the chair on the left (Picture above) and placed much more equipment around him to suit this subject matter substantially well.


One last element that our group picked up on, was the other person with Tim in a few shots. We feel this could be a bad thing as it has the potential to distract the audiences attention form the main subject (Tim) We didn't want to create this distraction, but again this relates to the previous statement above, whereby the music room was only ours to use for a period of time and the student needed to use the music room and have assistance from Tim (The image below)

Documentary Planning

First day filming

-Filler Shots
  -Music department wall of guitars and other music equipment
  -People playing some tunes e.g shots of hands playing the instrument
  -Get historical footage of music e.g. Rolling stones live show at Altamont


-Interviews
  -Students
  -General Public
  -Industry Professionals


-Voice Over
  -Used as the glue in between shots
  -About anything related to music which is relevant

Soundtrack Mindmap

Risk Assessment for Interview

There are many risks that have a possible chance of occurring when filming this interview or transporting the equipment to the desired destination of filming. We must put many things in place to prevent these from happening.

Camera/ Light/ Mic breakage

There will be many possible aspects that must be carefully looked into when transporting the camera. We must make sure that firstly the route in safe to take the camera along. The main issue with this is tripping over, so being extremely careful whilst transporting the equipment shall be imperative. Keeping the camera within its protective casing is imperative just in case it were to be dropped accidently along its journey to the destination. Also loosing components such as the cameras lens cover must be very carefully managed. We may not want to keep the lens cover on within filming the interview if it were to take away some light, however if this were to happen we must make sure that the cover is stored in a safe place whilst filming and make sure each component is put back into its rightful place. One possible way to prevent this could be an equipment check list, this would help identify what has gone missing.


















The lights are as equally if not more delicate than the camera, similarly to the camera it must not be dropped as it will most likely damage the components within the lights which will end in them not functioning properly or at all. A good way to prevent this from happening is keeping the lights covered in some sort of protective casing or material if the worst case scenario were to occur. We must also make sure that the route is safe to take this piece of equipment on, this could also be linked into the equipment check list to prevent this piece of equipment being lost.




















Boom microphones are also a very delicate piece of equipment. Once again if these are dropped it may damage the components within it. Also adverse weather conditions are no way ideal for this piece of equipment, an example were to be rain. If water was concealed within this equipment it would more than likely break and be unusable. A good way to prevent this from happening would be to once again check the route in which the equipment is being transported on. Also check weather forecasts in order to find a suitable day to use this (however, this may not apply to our group as our interview is being conducted within a room safely guarded from this.













Tripping over wires 

The main piece of equipment that would make this happen would be the microphone wires, this could cause us to fall over and break the camera and probably the microphone. The best way to prevent this from occurring would be to make sure that all wires from the boom mic etc are tucked away in a safe lace when not being used or when being operated. Once this has been done, we shall not have the probably of tripping over loose wires. Before these precautions are taken the risk is within the range of 8/10. However once these precautions have been taken it would make this risk about 2/10.

General members of the school walking into the interview whilst filming

This isn't a potential health risk to ourselves or damage to any of the equipment. This is more for the sake of making our interview look professional and not informal, we may not want the general public walking in front of our interview in the music room. A good precaution that could be taken for this possible risk is to look into the music room and see when the busiest  times are for that particular area. The potential risk of this before taking the precautions was probably about 10/10 (especially for our area) However now we shall research the busiest times for the room and choose our times carefully to film.

Character Design

Set Design

Prop Design

Stop Motion Animation Formats

Stop motion evaluation

Clay/ paper cut outs/ objects

What went well

My animation was a success, working very well and running smoothly. The materials used for this stop motion animation piece were clay, objects and paper cut outs, surprisingly 

The animation that was created was done smoothly and worked well. I feel stop motion animation is the most effective way of generating animation because it is rather simple and straight forward to create. I feel that the material (clay) we chose was rather easy to mould into whatever shape you wanted to. Also the time limit was rather short to create an animation but this was done carefully and professionally, so this shows that stop motion animation is reliable, quick and easy to use. The paper cut outs also make a great backdrop for the animation to take place. The objects that we used (lolly stick and white fabric) also were easily moveable for the animation, The fabric was stuck in the mouth shape by cello-tape which worked well to sustain the shape. 

Even better if

For this particular animation i think that it would have been goo to have had something to represent or relate to, as the idea was chosen randomly. Also continuity was also a problem within this animation we have just created because whilst the eyes were rolling up the clay balls, it was hard not to get the balls from movie. Also the animation could have added sound to it this would have made the animation much more interesting to watch. Possibly could have linked some of the movements of the objects with some sound. Another element regarding continuity would be that finger dents on the clay can sometimes be visible, a way that could stop this from happening would be to possibly re mould the shape anytime that this happens 

Lego/Paper cut out 

What Went Well

When  testing out these other assets we could use to generate a stop motion piece. We found that using the Lego characters and objects we could  make this piece in a much shorter space of time as we didn't have to build characters or objects like the previous stop motion piece with the clay. We found that creating motion with these objects was much easier than using the clay as this could potentially change the clay's shape.

Even Better if 

I feel that the tea was an extremely delicate material to use within this piece as changing the motion of direction the tea was moving in had to be done using extreme care as we didn't want each shot to seem over edited. I feel that these objects were a good choice however, the piece could have had much more going on within it. Such as something else that makes its way in to the shot.

Sand/whiteboard/people

What Went Well

Firstly I feel that this use of animation actually looked the best out of all choices we have used. I think that this format would be easy to appeal to every audience, my reason for this is because certain audiences may think that lego or other such object similar to this could be too childish for them. I think that this format could be both entertaining and meaningful to any audience. Also, this format gives you a great spectrum of creating whatever you want, whereas the lego/objects could only move at certain lengths in certain ways. Whereas the sand can move into anything you wish it to be, this is also the same with the whiteboard as you can draw whatever you want within that space, it doesn't have many limits. Our group feel that having people (hands) within the piece was helpful, as we originally thought of blowing the sand away from the whiteboard to give our final shot, however this would have been extremely messy and long winded. So using our hands was a very successful alternative for this.

Even Better If

The main problem with this format of animation was first and for mostly the sand. You have to be extremely careful and professional in terms of continuity if you want your piece of animation to look good. I feel that if sand is to be used, it can only be used at one certain time only and not over a period of days as the continuity of each shot could be incorrect. This was almost an issue even for our short piece below, we had to be extremely careful to not make it look rather unprofessional. Our group feel that possibly a mixture of each format could work well together for our charity piece as we seem to think that there are very good aspects of each format.

Target Audience Research and Analysis

Analysis of the data

 

This questionnaire that was created was sent to teenagers, it may be short, however we feel that our group has generated a very good idea in terms of making this ident apppealing to teenagers whilst stressing a serious matter. These questions will help us develop on who we should be aiming this towards and what the audience may like to see within the piece.

 

From the first set of questions we gained a very simple response, all of which were asked to do this questionnaire we're students. Which will later help us gain more knowledge of how to make this appealing to the teenage audience. Moving onto the next set of questions the gender of all who answered this questionnaire were male, this is definitely helpful in terms of gaining knowledge on what the male teenage audience would like to see, however some late research may need to be done in order to find out what the female teenage audience would like to see within this stop motion piece for Crisis that would be appealing to teenagers.

 

Moving through to the net few questions we then see the soundtrack side of the stop motion. The was a 100% response onto the slow/tragic option. Which our group feel that would suit this ident extremely well, as we would like to stick to traditional methods of charity adverts. We don't want to break this traditional element to it by using happy music on such a serious matter. We are glad that the teenage audience feel this way too. Finally the last question was what the ident shall contain in terms of materials/objects. Of all the options that we gave for the teenagers to choose from, all of the options were chosen nearly even to each other. One of our original ideas that our group generated was to actually use all of these materials to make our piece with, we felt that this would be good to appeal to the target audience (teenagers) We are going to develop our original idea with these materials and this ident shall most likely come out appealing to the target audience whilst stressing the main idea of how homelss charity's like Crisis need help and support.

Documentary Script

Documentary script 

The Documentary script will be based on a varied collections of scenes.

Scene 1

Opening visuals?

This will be the start of our documentary where we shall set the scene or the main purpose of our documentary. Something possibly shall be narrated at the start about how pop music has been in a constant change each year, has it been for better or for worse? This shall set our question or subject matter that we hope to explore and explain. We shall also show the different artists since the 1930s to the current day through a slideshow of images that shall flash upon the screen.

Scene 2 
Visuals

This section of the documentary will most likely have the interviews with bands and members of the public on our topic of pop music. We'll ask them what's their favourite aspect of the current music industry and maybe views on how music has changed. This section will embody the main/key information or factual nucleus of the documentary. Interviews will be put in place in order to express members of the publics views on certain questions we may ask. These will be conducted around RavensWood School, Hayes, Bromley and surrounding area of South-East London.

Scene 3
Key Questions you want to answer here...

Here we be exploring data on interviews we have conducted and help ourselves reach a conclusion to our exploration of the change in pop music over the time 'era's'. In this section of the documentary there will most likely be voice over from one of our group members explaining our own opinions on whether the change in pop music has had more variety in the past and present representation of pop music and culture. 

Interview Research for Van Susans

Interview Research for Van Susans 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t2YsW9JwKk&safe=active

Tell me about the band and how it got together?

Yeah em... Me and Rob were the people that started off the band, we've been in a band together since we were fourteen, but they feel apart because we were just kids really, but how this band got together I was doing a work placement in London for a year, but I'm usually in Plymouth, but anyway when i came back I gave Rob a call to get the band back together, and Rob said yeah why not!
Ed is actually Rob's brother and then there's Tim who's also a brother, so there's three brothers in the band so it happened like that, and then there's Ollie Green then pianist is my brothers best mate so got him in the band by that, and then holly (fiddle player) has only recently joined, so yeah thats us.

This is a very important question to ask because people that haven't heard of the band need to have some sort of background information on them. This was a successful question as the band gave a detailed in-depth answer.

You have an album coming out this summer, can you tell me a little bit about the album how long has it taken you to write?

emm... we actually using songs, because its our debut album, so one of the songs called, 'don't get me off', me and rob wrote when we was fifteen, so now we've taken that and changed it into something new. So it is all the songs we've ever written together and putting them onto the album, and obviously picking the best ones, its got twelve tracks on it altogether and its called, 'pause in the moment', its out at the end of May, so yeah we cant wait for it.


This is also a very important question, this is because it will firstly make the band happy because it promotes their product. Secondly this is important because it tells the audience what the band have been doing. 

How does the creative process work in the band? Who does what and how does it start?

We all do something different really, but we have three core writers of the band and that is, Ollie, myself and the drummer Rob, and we all have different writing styles, but we all tend to write something on our own and then come back to the band to see if it works, but really there is no method. Yeah like I write the lyrics but then with the music we all just share and then compete to write then next best song really. Ed tends to write the ones that are complicated because he's the crazy musician nut, and Rob writes the pop-ie sorta ones, but me I'm kinda in-between.

So what would be your advice for anyone who's starting out in a band or trying to make it in the music industry?

I feel this is a great question to ask because obviously the audience viewing this interview are going to be interested in music, not all of them will be musicians but there are a good chance of people that would have at one point in there lives thought about the idea of pursueing a career in the music industry because it is considered a 'dream' job. So this question is great because the audience will relate to it and it directly refers back to the audience which is very engaging.

Was it your mum who got hit by an air ballon at a gig?

This is a very humourous question, this is great for the interview because any one in the audience will be interested in this because its quite a shocking question to ask, the informal tone of this question makes it very easy to get involved/engaged within the conversation. 

Ideas Mindmap

Equipment List for Documentary

What equipment we need for the, 'How pop music has changed?' Documentary...



Camera
We will obviously need a camera to film the documentary, preferably I would rather be using a smaller but still good quality camera as we will be moving from different locations as this will be of great assistance if we are lugging heavy equipment around. We are going to rent these from the media department at Ravens Wood School.

Microphone - Boom and handheld
We need a microphone to record audio for my documentary. When I
have organized interviews with bands and industry professionals, I will use a Boom microphone because I don't have to hold the mic in my hand and it will give a nice solid flow of audio throughout the interview because its in  the same position and we will most probably be inside so there will not be any wind noise and there is no need to use the sock.
Nevertheless the quick interviews that I'm going to do with random members of the public I will use a hand held microphone because this doesn't bring a lot of unwanted attention to us which you'd get with a big boom microphone and also just makes it easier to get a clear sound of the persons voice by holding it close to there mouth, through all the loud crowds in urban areas, this is defiantly a better choice. This will be rented from the media department at Ravens Wood School.


Paper and pens for questions for interviews for what questions
A notepad and pens are essential to take to the interview in order to take brief notes on what our interviewee replies to each of our questions. So this will help us evaluate each question. Spare pens will also be essential to bring as one may run out and prevent us from writing our notes.









Prepared Questions and other paper work
I will have pre-prepared questions for the interviews, I will do some of my own research on some different bands and industry professionals that I plan to interview. These are an essential piece of information to bring because this will ensure i have got a interesting interview not a vague boring one.










Tripod
This shall be rented from the media department, this will help us film a steady interview and prevent the camera from shaking, which will physically make the interview look very amateur and unprofessional, which we want to avoid and giving a polished and high grade final project. This shall also be included within the deposit from the media department at Ravens Wood School.

Small light (e.g. lamp)

Because I will be doing some interviewing on public streets, I will need someone to hold the camera whilst I ask questions, so I will need a teammate to do this for me.

Development of ideas

Development of ideas

First Idea -

Using a white board to visually write down and illustrate a tragic story of a homeless person. We will be able to get a true story from crisis, the charity we are doing the animation for.

Developed -

We are going to still use the same idea of using a white board to illustrate a story about the homeless, also as its a white board it makes it easy to write words on it, I will do this because it will make it a lot easier for the audience to understand.





Developing on my clay and paper idea -

To develop on this idea I'm going to try and make it appeal more to teenagers, and the only way of doing this I feel is to show them that its not 'fun' to live on the street and just be honest with them and show them to truths about what homeless people go through on a day-to-day basis. It is an advantage that we are filming with clay to animate because in my opinion it gives a complete different look being more friendly etc... to the advertisement, if we filmed this with real life footage it would give a disturbing out look to the audience.

Developing on my Lego idea -

This idea uses just Lego as I feel Lego is a good material to use as it doesn't create to much of a mess. This idea starts with a couple of shots of a homeless person, laying in the middle of pavement sleeping rough with empty bottles and lose clothes scattered around him. The next shot is where a pedestrian is walking down the street and just steps over him to get off to work, not caring that someone is sleeping in the middle of the pavement. After this the next shot is of a person in a red Crisis shirt walking up to the homeless person on the street and puts a blanket over his shoulders and comforts him and starts walking him down the Crisis help centre.

Developing on my Clay, Lego, Hands and Objects idea -

This idea includes a range of materials instead of using just one material as I like different materials for different purposes. The first shot will be of a homeless person on the street laying up against a wall with the Crisis logo graffiti-ed on it  without him even knowing that Crisis is a charity designed to for helping people in his situation. Whilst hes laying up against the wall he is looking sorry for himself and unhappy, but a passer by comes up to him and throws change in his pot and says, 'turn around they will help you', and it goes to a shot of where hes getting cared for and is happy. This last shot will show that Crisis is a charity for helping care for homeless people, and trying to get them off the streets and getting there life back on track.

Equiptment List

Equipment list

Rentable camera

This camera shall be rented from the RavensWood School media department. We will need this piece of equipment in order to film our interview. It should roughly cost about a 20 pound deposit.

Tripod

This shall also be rented from the media department, this will help us film a steady interview and prevent the camera from shaking, which would make the interview look very informal or unprofessional. This shall also be included within the deposit from the media department at RavensWood School.

Boom Mic

The boom mic shall also be rented from the media department from RavensWood school. The boom mic will help us obtain the best amount of sound quality when our interviewee answers the questions we provide. We don't want the sound quality to be poor as we may not be able hear some words that are said from the interviewee. This shall also come under the deposit for the camera from RavensWood school.















Notepad and pens

A notepad and pens are essential to take to the interview in order to take brief notes on what our interviewee replies to each of our questions. So this will help us evaluate each question. Spare pens will also be essential to bring as one may run out and prevent us from writing our notes.

(Possibly) A small lamp for lighting 

There may be a possible need for a small lamp incase the lighting within the music room isn't sufficient enough. As you want to generate an interview where you cannot see the subject, we aim to show different shots of the subject in light from views around the room.

Pitch for presentation

Creating the perfect pitch...

What is the main purpose of your interview?

To see what the music industry is really like from some one who works in the industry and a musicians point of view.

What makes your idea unique?

Our Interview will be unique because unlike the other interviews i've researched, this interview will be about Tim Dullaway a lot more personally, and get him to play some bits on the bass guitar, and see what future plans he has.

What are your key questions and why would your audience care?

The Van Susans have cultivated a large fan base over the years, so by having an up to date interview this will keep the fans happy, and most importantly bring interest and new people to the band.

What plans have you already put in place in order to record your interview (location, equipment & crew) realistic?

We plan to rent a camera from the schools media department, also we'll use the schools music studios/rehearsal rooms to film the interview in the school, this will look good as there are many instruments around this room and on the walls.

Location Recce

Location Recce

This is a satellite view of Ravens Wood School, this is were we are going to do research and some production for this documentary. Also we will get interview(s) here from the music department because they will have a good understanding and opinion on music.

I have taken pictures of my own, I done this in the music room where I would like to do the interview with Tim Dullaway. This room is ideal for the interview because it has a lot of music equipment around which will help the audience of our interview understand immediately that it is about music. This room is good because it is spacious, so I could maybe get lights in there as well to give the interview a much more professional look.