NEWS UNIT: FIRST INTERVIEW FOR PACKAGE

So we got our first bit of filming done for the unit. Interviewing Carina Downing education manager at the BFI. She runs the Young Jury program which has been taking place over the last few weeks, this is a program where young people aged between 18-22 get to watch and judge on selected films at the London Film Festival.

As we only actually did our workshop on the way we should conduct an interview for the unit today, yesterdays interview was a little bit experimental but still important for the package for our final news production. We essentially only asked 3 questions to Carina about the festival and what would be playing. The 3 questions we asked were along the lines of:

1. What films will be playing at this years festival?
2. Will there be any big names on the red carpet this year? 
3. Using numbers give us an idea of the scale of the festival?

We got very helpful and informative answers from her which will be very beneficial to our final package. 

We had to use a hand-held mic for the interview

Things Learnt

Obviously there were things I can pick on that we could have improved on, but there were also positives to take from the interview. 

I would say we could have done some more work on testing out the camera prior to using it on the day. We were restricted yesterday by the fact that we could not use the Sony cameras or the clip mics which would have been ideal for this kind of interview. However we improvised by borrowing the small JVC camera from the equipment store. The reason this was helpful was for sound as it meant we could film with sound from the same device. As a result sound has come out very well although as a complication the picture quality is significantly lacking colour from the JVC camera we used. This is obviously something to move on into post production to see if it can be altered to an appropriate level for a news channel.  

Looking back I would have spent more time testing out the equipment before to get the best picture and sound. This is something I will take on for future reference. 

Our plan on the day was to also get footage of signs and promotion the the festival and looking through what we got it is nowhere near enough for what we need for this package. So the plane is to go back into London and pickup some shots to boost the quality of this package.