The non expert interview i have chosen to discuss is my interview with MS patient Sarah Cohan - Sarah is one of the first patients to be issued with Bayer Pharmaceuticals new product Sativex. I managed to acquire this interview after placing an advert on NORML UK's website. She contacted me and said she would be happy to help if we could schedule the interview around the numerous talks she does up and down the country. Because of these constraints I decided it would be best to conduct the interview over Skype.
The set up for the interview was extremely professional in my opinion - despite being over Skype. I had set up a camera to capture and over the shoulder shot of myself and the screen that Sarah was on. I also had a screen recorder running to make sure that I had variation of shots to switch between. As well as this i had a mic plugged in to the computer to get unadulterated audio from Sarah and I wore a lapel mic to get my audio with good clarity. With all these things set up I think I combatted the fact we were on Skype rather well. Given that I had every possible bit of equipment to make the interview as professional as possible made up for being on Skype.
The approach I adopted for this interview was light hearted. I understood that Sarah had recently come out of a serious relapse and didn't particularly want to start hounding her for certain answers. With this in mind I endeavoured to have a friendly chat with her but at the same time subtly angle the conversation to get the answers I wanted. I did this by asking her a broad question that would enable her to talk fairly freely and then offering her statements to comment on to bring her back on track. I think this worked well and Sarah seemed largely comfortable with the situation and gave some fantastic answers.
Thursday, 27 June 2013
Tuesday, 25 June 2013
Audience Theories
Audience Theories
What key words or statements would you describe the Hypodermic Needle Theory with?
What does Orson Welles' radio adaptation have to do with Hypodermic Needle Theory? Apparently lead many audience members, and some of the media, to believe that aliens actually landed in New York.
Descrive THREE ways in which the Uses and Gratifications works. - Examples -audiences use media as a sense of diversion (from everyday life)
- Brainwashing audiences into one way of thinking
- audiences are passive
- audiences are injected with a message
- audiences have no opinion on the matter
- message is received and accepted.
What does Orson Welles' radio adaptation have to do with Hypodermic Needle Theory? Apparently lead many audience members, and some of the media, to believe that aliens actually landed in New York.
Descrive THREE ways in which the Uses and Gratifications works. - Examples -audiences use media as a sense of diversion (from everyday life)
- Personal Identity
- Companship or relationship
- Surveillance
- Representation
- Entertainment
- Active = audiences participate with the text, or have their own opinion or interpretation of the text.
- Passive = audience accepts the text with no thought or opinion on the matter.
Wednesday, 19 June 2013
FMP Evaluation
FMP Evaluation
This evaluation of my final major project – a documentary
film names The Chronic Issue, will look at all the strengths and weaknesses of
not only the film but the production process as well as what I would have done
differently if I could have.
The film itself was looking at the situation of Cannabis in the UK, specifically focusing on legal, medical and social issues. I also focused a small amount on the War on Drugs and a whole. During the making of this film I travelled to various locations both in the UK and abroad.
I managed to secure a number of interviews with good quality interviewees; this provided me with good quality content.
Strengths –
I think I succeeded far better than expected within the
making of this film. When I look back at the interviews I was able to arrange,
the places I was able to go and the support I was given from external groups
was fantastic.
I still hold this view despite a number of outspoken objections from certain lecturers. From the moment of conception this film concept was not greeted in a particularly positive light, this was one thing that drove me to make this film the best I could possibly do. I believe I was right to stand by my concept as I was able to use my skills with people and my abilities to make links with the specific people I needed to.
I was able to identify the people I wanted to talk to rather quickly. With the help of some very supportive organisations and individuals I was able to gain access and peoples time in nearly every framework I had chosen.
For example I travelled to Amsterdam in order to talk to a couple of extremely experienced and educated guys – to be able to acquire some of these peoples time is quite difficult and so I felt as though I was on to a bit of a winner by them even agreeing to talk to me. I was taken to a number of coffee shops to meet the owners, unfortunately I was unable to get footage of the inner workings of the store due to legal boundaries. However I did gain some extremely useful insight and angles with which to incorporate in to further aspects of my film.
I was able to set up interviews with Cannabis historians, Ex police chiefs, ex MI5 agents as well as MS patients.
I genuinely believe that the success of this film came through my ability to link with people and cherry pick the exact person I wanted to use. The film would have suffered dramatically if I had not been able to interview the people I was. It would have lost a lot of the credibility I wanted the film to have.
I think despite the expectation for the film to go wrong and be a bit of a half arsed disaster I ensured that this wouldn’t happen by sticking to the concept I had originally envisioned.
My planning was a really helpful aspect throughout the project. I was able to plan for everything that I did and kept notes of what was coming up over the coming days. This helped me to stay on top of everything and be aware of the more important aspects of the film. This shows in through my production diary.
Upon the showing of my film despite a few weaknesses (which I will go into further later) I felt very proud of the piece of documentary film I had managed to assembled despite some frankly ludicrous criteria and the emphasis put on being “unbiased” – a notion I strongly disagree with.
Initially I was urged not to attempt a film regarding the laws around Cannabis and drugs. A number of other topics where suggested because I “already had a huge knowledge on this topic. It would push you to learn about something else” I completely disagree with this. You wouldn’t ask David Attenborough to make a fashion documentary, that would be ludicrous – stick to what you know. It made sense to me that I use my knowledge to create a well-educated piece of film. Not attempt to learn an entire new subject and then document it poorly.
Returning briefly to the notion of remaining totally unbiased, this again makes very little sense. I agree if you are making a documentary with no heart or passion. It is impossible to make a documentary that credits idiocy.
With regard to the War on drugs there is no sense to it, it is wrong, it costs millions and a cacophony of lies have been told. If I were to acknowledge these arguments it would undermine the political view point of the film. If I were to make a film about murder, kidnapping or rape (many of which are a direct subsequence of the war on drugs) would I be a neglectful film not to show the positive sides of these things? No, of course not.
The same can be said of my chosen topic, I cannot show a good side to the subject matter if there isn’t one.
I stand by my choices with this film and am proud of the result.
I still hold this view despite a number of outspoken objections from certain lecturers. From the moment of conception this film concept was not greeted in a particularly positive light, this was one thing that drove me to make this film the best I could possibly do. I believe I was right to stand by my concept as I was able to use my skills with people and my abilities to make links with the specific people I needed to.
I was able to identify the people I wanted to talk to rather quickly. With the help of some very supportive organisations and individuals I was able to gain access and peoples time in nearly every framework I had chosen.
For example I travelled to Amsterdam in order to talk to a couple of extremely experienced and educated guys – to be able to acquire some of these peoples time is quite difficult and so I felt as though I was on to a bit of a winner by them even agreeing to talk to me. I was taken to a number of coffee shops to meet the owners, unfortunately I was unable to get footage of the inner workings of the store due to legal boundaries. However I did gain some extremely useful insight and angles with which to incorporate in to further aspects of my film.
I was able to set up interviews with Cannabis historians, Ex police chiefs, ex MI5 agents as well as MS patients.
I genuinely believe that the success of this film came through my ability to link with people and cherry pick the exact person I wanted to use. The film would have suffered dramatically if I had not been able to interview the people I was. It would have lost a lot of the credibility I wanted the film to have.
I think despite the expectation for the film to go wrong and be a bit of a half arsed disaster I ensured that this wouldn’t happen by sticking to the concept I had originally envisioned.
My planning was a really helpful aspect throughout the project. I was able to plan for everything that I did and kept notes of what was coming up over the coming days. This helped me to stay on top of everything and be aware of the more important aspects of the film. This shows in through my production diary.
Upon the showing of my film despite a few weaknesses (which I will go into further later) I felt very proud of the piece of documentary film I had managed to assembled despite some frankly ludicrous criteria and the emphasis put on being “unbiased” – a notion I strongly disagree with.
Initially I was urged not to attempt a film regarding the laws around Cannabis and drugs. A number of other topics where suggested because I “already had a huge knowledge on this topic. It would push you to learn about something else” I completely disagree with this. You wouldn’t ask David Attenborough to make a fashion documentary, that would be ludicrous – stick to what you know. It made sense to me that I use my knowledge to create a well-educated piece of film. Not attempt to learn an entire new subject and then document it poorly.
Returning briefly to the notion of remaining totally unbiased, this again makes very little sense. I agree if you are making a documentary with no heart or passion. It is impossible to make a documentary that credits idiocy.
With regard to the War on drugs there is no sense to it, it is wrong, it costs millions and a cacophony of lies have been told. If I were to acknowledge these arguments it would undermine the political view point of the film. If I were to make a film about murder, kidnapping or rape (many of which are a direct subsequence of the war on drugs) would I be a neglectful film not to show the positive sides of these things? No, of course not.
The same can be said of my chosen topic, I cannot show a good side to the subject matter if there isn’t one.
I stand by my choices with this film and am proud of the result.
Weaknesses –
I think that my weaknesses within this project lay primarily
with my editing skills. Unfortunately my skills in this particular area are
lacking. While I enjoy editing and am competent in both skill and speed I find
I don’t particularly have the mind that is required for intense editing
periods.
For example I had over six and a half hours of raw footage that needed to be compressed in to an eight to twelve minute film. This was by no means an easy task for someone with a relatively short attention spans when it comes to staring at a screen.
I feel I edited the footage I had reasonably well to form a cohesive, well-reasoned and compelling argument. Albeit a few loose edits and the, unbeknown to me, game changing situation regarding backgrounds, of which much was made, I think my film was a success.
One potential weakness, but one created by criteria out of my control or agreement, was the lack of relevant cutaways I managed to get. Unfortunately I think this was an unavoidable issue given the discussion of my film. It was always going to be able to gain access to the jails, pharma labs, narco-states that was being discussed in the film. I'm not sure that this is a fair criteria given the limit of archive footage and the topic and content of more ambitious documentaries.
For example I had over six and a half hours of raw footage that needed to be compressed in to an eight to twelve minute film. This was by no means an easy task for someone with a relatively short attention spans when it comes to staring at a screen.
I feel I edited the footage I had reasonably well to form a cohesive, well-reasoned and compelling argument. Albeit a few loose edits and the, unbeknown to me, game changing situation regarding backgrounds, of which much was made, I think my film was a success.
One potential weakness, but one created by criteria out of my control or agreement, was the lack of relevant cutaways I managed to get. Unfortunately I think this was an unavoidable issue given the discussion of my film. It was always going to be able to gain access to the jails, pharma labs, narco-states that was being discussed in the film. I'm not sure that this is a fair criteria given the limit of archive footage and the topic and content of more ambitious documentaries.
I think when I finally had the film finished I realised a
few aspects I could have improved on. One of these was the amount of cutaways I
had procured. There was nowhere near the amount of suitable cutaways I thought I
had. This compromised the quality of the film as some of the interviews had irrelevant
cutaways that I had to work in to the film.
The second would have been some of the positions I used for my interviews. I think if I had thought a little further in to the back drop it would have given the film a more professional air. This is something that I accept as a learning curve and will make sure I don’t make the same mistakes again.
I was extremely happy with the quality of interviews I managed to acquire but I'm not sure I necessarily did them justice.
While my lack of unbiased was a conscious decision I think if I were to do it again I would add a little more negative viewpoints as this would have given the film more credibility. I found it difficult to obtain an interview from someone who was anti-drugs. This is one of the main reasons the film was lacking in a negative stand point. This was somewhat out of my hands and I didn’t particularly want to compromise the integrity of the film by having someone with no knowledge of a the topic as an interviewee. While this would have addressed the bias issue I think it would have lessened the impact of the film. Again this will be a learning curve for next time.
The second would have been some of the positions I used for my interviews. I think if I had thought a little further in to the back drop it would have given the film a more professional air. This is something that I accept as a learning curve and will make sure I don’t make the same mistakes again.
I was extremely happy with the quality of interviews I managed to acquire but I'm not sure I necessarily did them justice.
While my lack of unbiased was a conscious decision I think if I were to do it again I would add a little more negative viewpoints as this would have given the film more credibility. I found it difficult to obtain an interview from someone who was anti-drugs. This is one of the main reasons the film was lacking in a negative stand point. This was somewhat out of my hands and I didn’t particularly want to compromise the integrity of the film by having someone with no knowledge of a the topic as an interviewee. While this would have addressed the bias issue I think it would have lessened the impact of the film. Again this will be a learning curve for next time.
This film was always going to be ambitious and was always
going to be a struggle to create the product I envisioned. However I think my
weakness’s didn’t take a huge amount from the point of the film. Just in terms
of my own personal standards I think this could have been a trifle better if
those weakness’s had been addressed earlier.
To conclude this evaluation I think the film I was able to
make given the criteria constraints was a really good effort. The level of
interviews I was able to achieve were the quality of interviews that the BBC
would be happy to have. Taking in to account the travel involved I'm proud of
my level of commitment to the film given its purpose. I believe this is because
of my passion towards the cause and I wouldn’t have been able to put the same
level of effort in to less ambitious project – despite the fact I would have
likely got a similar grade if I had.
Interview Techniques
Investigative Interview:
Investigative interviews are done with the express intention of building a picture of the scenario or topic being discussed. They use quick fire questions, instead of getting people to simply answer the questions you can encourage them to create an image with the answers they give.
A good example of investigative interviews would be police interviews. They ask a select type of questions in order to best garner the information they need. The sort of questions that would be asked in these interviews would be to set up the interviewee to give the most informative answers. In certain occasions it would be planned to try and catch someone out, especially if they mistakenly reveal information.
Promotional Interviews:
These interviews are best suited to advertising a specific product. These styles of interview are primarily seen in the movie industry. For example an interview with Seth Rogan on the topic of his new film would be seen as a promotional interview. These styles of interview are used to push a product, the sort of questions that would be asked would be tailored to releasing positive information regarding said product. With regard to the film questions would be asked to encourage the audience to go see the film. This is a very clever way of advertising as the audience get a glimpse of celebrities off screen and it creates a personal interest in that person, especially if the certain actor is a likeable person. This new found personal interest in the actor would encourage the audience to go and see the film.
Hard News:
This is an example of an informative interview that has an agenda behind it. They are generally used to lay down facts on a certain issue and be extremely to the point. These styles of interview would be seen on Question Time. You would frequently find these sorts of interviews in political circles. Its always interesting to see a Hard News interview as the news anchor generally pushes and prods their subject in order to get the facts out of them, especially if the politician is being typical and trying to worm their way out of it.
These interviews arent always necessarily passive aggressive. Sometimes these interviews are just used to extract as many facts and figures from the horses mouth as possible. Its one thing to give an audience a load of facts and figures on screen but most people wont particuarly take any notice. However if a doctor or scientist were to deliver the same facts on screen people are far more likely to sit up and take notice.
Light Hearted:
These styles of interviews are a lot more laid back and far more conversational. These types of interviews are usually found on chat shows where the style of conversation is a lot more laid back and is more about the personal side of a person than being informative. These interviews are excellent for day time TV or Breakfast shows. The reason for this is most people have these shows on in the background as they get ready or eat in the morning. This is the last time you want to be thinking about having educational interviews jam packed with facts. No one would pay any attention at all. And so you have the development of a more conversational style of interview that shows the subject in a much more approachable light. It shows the audience that these too are real people that have exactly the same small talk chats as every other person in this planet. Again creating a relatable and personal relationship between audience and subject.
Example of a bad interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADJhErmJuoQ
It's a morning talk show people watch before work or class while eating breakfast. Notice how quickly they jump to talking about his boots and how that guy says he's unable to understand him when he's on the radio right after he makes a relatively intelligent statement. I actually watched this three times over now and the more I watch it, the more I notice how often they try to jump to such trivial points like his outward appearance. You can see it in their body language and facial expressions. It's honestly astounding that they don't want (or don't now how) to further discuss anything which could be seen as higher level thinking. It's especially apparent when he asks that dude how he feels about Manning and Snowden. The short haired blonde jumps back about 4 minutes into the interview with the whole 'can't understand him' thing and that dude goes to the chest hair line, essentially hoping the average viewer completely forgets what Brand just said. So incredibly ridiculous really. I feel like they expected to have some laughs and accomplish little more than serving as just another stop on Brand's promo tour. This guy was honestly too nice to them.
This is clearly a misplaced light hearted interview. Unfortunately Russell Brand is exactly the wrong person to take part in a casual light hearted interview. He is an extremely big personality that needs to be controlled within an interview process, otherwise he will run riot. Which is exactly what happened. He realised that his personality was stronger and he was far more intelligent than all three of the panel and continued to embarrass them, especially when at one point he literally took over the interview. This should have been a promotional interview that quickly developed in to a farce.
Investigative interviews are done with the express intention of building a picture of the scenario or topic being discussed. They use quick fire questions, instead of getting people to simply answer the questions you can encourage them to create an image with the answers they give.
A good example of investigative interviews would be police interviews. They ask a select type of questions in order to best garner the information they need. The sort of questions that would be asked in these interviews would be to set up the interviewee to give the most informative answers. In certain occasions it would be planned to try and catch someone out, especially if they mistakenly reveal information.
Promotional Interviews:
These interviews are best suited to advertising a specific product. These styles of interview are primarily seen in the movie industry. For example an interview with Seth Rogan on the topic of his new film would be seen as a promotional interview. These styles of interview are used to push a product, the sort of questions that would be asked would be tailored to releasing positive information regarding said product. With regard to the film questions would be asked to encourage the audience to go see the film. This is a very clever way of advertising as the audience get a glimpse of celebrities off screen and it creates a personal interest in that person, especially if the certain actor is a likeable person. This new found personal interest in the actor would encourage the audience to go and see the film.
Hard News:
This is an example of an informative interview that has an agenda behind it. They are generally used to lay down facts on a certain issue and be extremely to the point. These styles of interview would be seen on Question Time. You would frequently find these sorts of interviews in political circles. Its always interesting to see a Hard News interview as the news anchor generally pushes and prods their subject in order to get the facts out of them, especially if the politician is being typical and trying to worm their way out of it.
These interviews arent always necessarily passive aggressive. Sometimes these interviews are just used to extract as many facts and figures from the horses mouth as possible. Its one thing to give an audience a load of facts and figures on screen but most people wont particuarly take any notice. However if a doctor or scientist were to deliver the same facts on screen people are far more likely to sit up and take notice.
Light Hearted:
These styles of interviews are a lot more laid back and far more conversational. These types of interviews are usually found on chat shows where the style of conversation is a lot more laid back and is more about the personal side of a person than being informative. These interviews are excellent for day time TV or Breakfast shows. The reason for this is most people have these shows on in the background as they get ready or eat in the morning. This is the last time you want to be thinking about having educational interviews jam packed with facts. No one would pay any attention at all. And so you have the development of a more conversational style of interview that shows the subject in a much more approachable light. It shows the audience that these too are real people that have exactly the same small talk chats as every other person in this planet. Again creating a relatable and personal relationship between audience and subject.
Example of a bad interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADJhErmJuoQ
It's a morning talk show people watch before work or class while eating breakfast. Notice how quickly they jump to talking about his boots and how that guy says he's unable to understand him when he's on the radio right after he makes a relatively intelligent statement. I actually watched this three times over now and the more I watch it, the more I notice how often they try to jump to such trivial points like his outward appearance. You can see it in their body language and facial expressions. It's honestly astounding that they don't want (or don't now how) to further discuss anything which could be seen as higher level thinking. It's especially apparent when he asks that dude how he feels about Manning and Snowden. The short haired blonde jumps back about 4 minutes into the interview with the whole 'can't understand him' thing and that dude goes to the chest hair line, essentially hoping the average viewer completely forgets what Brand just said. So incredibly ridiculous really. I feel like they expected to have some laughs and accomplish little more than serving as just another stop on Brand's promo tour. This guy was honestly too nice to them.
This is clearly a misplaced light hearted interview. Unfortunately Russell Brand is exactly the wrong person to take part in a casual light hearted interview. He is an extremely big personality that needs to be controlled within an interview process, otherwise he will run riot. Which is exactly what happened. He realised that his personality was stronger and he was far more intelligent than all three of the panel and continued to embarrass them, especially when at one point he literally took over the interview. This should have been a promotional interview that quickly developed in to a farce.
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