Day one
After receiving our instructions from Stephen and getting put into groups (with Mike and Chris), we were provided the following gear:
Shotgun was MKH-416 recorded into a Zoom F8 Multi Track recorder and later
Sennheiser wired lapels
This was initially challenging as I have no experience with live sound, yet it was a simple matter of thinking logically and being disciplined enough to read the manual.
We then had a trial run of recording with the lapel microphones (Chris and I interviewed each other). Quality was lacking so we scrapped the recording, however, it was good to get comfortable talking into a microphone.
We took the time to refine our questions and make them open ended. Questions were initially about first gig, age and where which didn’t really give people the opportunity to discuss how it impacted their music career. However, I learned later that open-ended questions aren’t a good thing when going to a brief, as people tend to ramble on.
Our questions were:
● First gig
● Most recent gig
● Worst gig
Part of the requirements of the task were to interview each other, an SAE student, an SAE staff member and one member of the public. I thought I had a good rapport with the tech team.
I was wrong.
Luckily, we found a trimester six student who agreed to be interviewed and gave great advice on operating the boom mic. He gave a very good interview detailing seeing Coldplay live in Europe and being young and free at the time.
Day two
We interviewed Garth who discussed his seeing Primus, being disappointed with perfectionism live and his days as a live sound engineer. Sadly, as we only had five minutes, we had to cut a lot of his insights into the music industry.
Next up we interviewed people in the street. We had a few rejections until we stumble upon two young lads which turns out they were the worst people to interview. They were the only 19-year olds on the face of the earth who weren't into live music nor had ever seen bands, despite going to festivals over the summer.
Drugs may have been involved.
Day three
Our final task was for Chris and myself to interview one other. We did two takes, as the first one went for over eleven minutes. We had 20 minutes of audio to reduce down to three and making it sound seamless. The background noise (like music) proved difficult to edit, it’s hard to cut forward to another part of the interview. We also didn’t realize how much time we wasted saying ummmm, stretching words out or pausing between sentences. Once we cut out our inability to speak english, we were well underneath five minutes.
Here an edited version of our interview with Perth's finest.
Reflection
· Surprisingly enjoyed the editing process. I found it to be more creative than technical, as you could create a whole new interview with some quick edits.
· Should have spent more time with the boom mic opposed to interviewing.
· Interview technique. Learning to shut up, not interrupt people and listen.
· Think on your feet and adapt.
Comments