Interview & Evaluation

In this interview I spoke to Jade Mason where I asked her about what she likes about Ravens Wood School.

She was very positive about her transition from GCSE to A Level and she was very responsive.

One of the best answers Jade gave was when she answered the question: What do you do at the weekends?
She answered that she works on her work mainly but goes out and enjoys herself as well.
We weren't looking for the answer where she would spend her time working and I liked that she gave an honest answer to the question.

In this interview you can see that Jade is confident in what she is answering as she is smiling a lot and answering mostly in full sentences. She also in some other places looks a bit un interested because as you can see she looked a bit embarrassed to answer the questions.

The good thing about Jade is that she includes the questions in the answer which is really helpful when it comes to editing because it saves you from putting sub titles underneath.

My interview techniques were to ask the questions as straight on as possible, I hadn't pre prepared Jade to what the question was going to be because I didn't want it to look staged or too prepared because some times the "umm" make it more interesting because you want to know what the interviewee is thinking but your having to wait for them to answer.

Interview Question Draft

In our documentary we asked a number of questions to our interviewees, here stated below are the questions that we asked.


Oliver Friend:

• What do you do at the weekends? 
• How do you think people see you at school? 
• What subjects do you take? 
• Where do you see yourself in a few years
• What is Sixth Form like?
• What is different from in the Sixth Form to the lower school? 

Jade Mason:

• What was the transition like from GCSE to Sixth Form ? 
• Did you find it hard to fit in ?
• Whats the best thing that happened since joining? 
• Whats your best impression?
• Was it easy to make friends? 
• How do you think people see you at school? 

Tyler Lewis Kilden:

• How did it come across being head boy? 
• What does it mean to you 
• How was the transition from the lower school to the upper school 
• Do you think that your sexuality effected your nomination 
• When did you join the school? 
• What subjects do you take? 
• What do you do at the weekend? 

After asking these questions to the interviewee, I found that the responses we had were reasonably good, i have picked a response from each interviewee.

Oliver Friend - When asking Olly the question "How do you think that people see you at school?"
Olly responded " I don't really think how people see me at school, I have my own friends so I don't tend to worry about how other people see me."

Jade Mason - When asking Jade her questions the answer that really stood out was to the question "Did you find it hard to fit in". Jade is a very bubbly student so when answering " I did at first but I gained more confidence and as all the girls were in the same position we bonded quite quickly" we were at first a bit surprised but after we thought that it was a really effective answer.

Tyler Lewis Kilden - We asked more questions to Tyler because he is the head boy and he has more of an understanding of the school. "How did it come across being head boy" to this question Tyler replied " I didn't think I had a chance at first but the teachers started to tell me that I did, and because the teachers believed in me I started to too." This was a great answer from Tyler because it showed that he really believed in his self. 

Interview Research

For this task I watched two interviews one being Piers Morgan Life Stories with Cheryl Cole and the other being The Jonathan Ross Show with Simon Cowell and David Walliams.


Out of the two interviews that i have watched, my favourite interview would be the Piers Morgan - Life Stories with Cheryl Cole. I have chosen this one because you get to find out more information in this interview and it is more drawing because you are learning about an extremely well known person the information that you don't always know.

My least favourite interview would be the Jonathan Ross Show because it is more of a jokey interview than anything serious, therefore your not really finding out any information about what you are wanting to find out.

The best question asked out of all the interviews would be Piers Morgans where he asked the question "How does this experience change your life?" This for me was the most interesting question because you are finding out about how the change of life becoming a celebrity has changed her and what it has done for good then for bad.

The worst question would have been asked by Jonathan Ross where he asked the question "How is yours and Simons relationship working" to David Walliams, I thought that this was the worst question because it wasn't serious and it was making the interview into a joke rather than a serious interview.

"Well look at you Piers!" This was the funniest response because Piers Morgan was digging to find out the truth as to how much Cheryl Cole spends on clothes and she responded to the question "who would do that" Piers then replied "I know, ridiculous" where Cheryl then replied "Well look at you Piers!" I think this put Piers back into place showing that he's not going to be able to crack her that easily in this interview.

In Piers Morgans interview it was about getting an emotion out of someone and Cheryl Cole had just been through the trauma that was Malaria, that had only just happened 12 weeks before going on the show, so it was quite a raw topic. Piers asked the question "Do you remember the doctors saying to you that you could die? Do you remember how you felt?" Cheryl simply responded "If I'm going to die i'd rather go now so I don't go through anymore pain." This is quite an emotive response because its quite hard to go through a near death experience.

My Favourite interviewer is Piers Morgan because he tries to get to the point of the interview, he doesn't beet around the bush, he tends to get to the point of the interview and still find out the information that everyone wants to know.

Interviews for Dummies

In order to produce a interview you will need a combination of skills/job roles, these responsibilities are shared by the producers, directer, interviewer, cameraman and music and lighting technicians. In this case you'll be doing all of these jobs yourself. In order to film an interview you will need to make preparations which include: arranging a guest, choosing your location, preparing your equipment and setting it up on location and a final briefing while making technical checks. Another tip is to always check everything before shooting and always take test shots before rushing into it and getting it wrong.

Camera Techniques/Shots

When filming an interview i would suggest that you should use the single camera technique, this means that you won't need to move the camera when shooting. When shooting you are either filming the interviewer or the interviewee, if shooting the interviewee you would generally shoot in a mid shot so that you just show their upper body. You could also do a two shot, this involves shooting both people involved in the interview. Another shot used would be a back cut, this is a shot of the interviewer asking the question which is shown on the other side of the interviewer. A very popular shot when it comes to professional interviews would be "The Noddy", this is a shot where they film the interviewee or interviewer nodding at the question or the answer.

Mise-en-scene

When it comes to mise-en-scene in an interview it often depends on who the interviewee is as to how it would work/be used. An example of this would be at an awards ceremony where the press backdrops would have the appropriate logos for who was sponsoring the event, who was the host of the event and the name of the event. It's important for the backdrops not to distract from the main person being interviewed. It's important for the interviewee to wear plain colours so that it doesn't cause a strobing effect with the camera.

Framing 

Framing is an element that you should consider when making a documentary as it needs to be done properly in order to get the right look. A very popular technique to use is the rule of thirds, this is where the screen is split up into 9 boxes on the screen, this helps to identify where to place the subject. when using this shot you need to line up one vertical line and the subjects eyes close to a horizontal line. you need to follow the lines so that they line up the interviewee with the shot, making sure they are in proportion to the background so that no errors occur.

Three point lighting 

Lighting is a very important thing when filming and interview, lighting helps to get a professional look in the shots. Many interviews do not use the correct techniques when filming their interviews so in order to make sure you get the best Finnish you need to include the lighting as a main point. The most popular lighting would be the three point lighting, this is where you use 3 different types of lights these are the Key light, Back light and Fill light. These all have different uses, the key light is the main light that has the strongest influence on the interview. The fill light is the secondary light and is placed opposite the key light, this is used for filling in shadows and it is often not as bright therefore it helps moving the light further away from the interviewee. Lastly the back light is placed behind the interviewee this helps to prevent definition and highlights around the subjects figure.

One to one interview 

One to one interviews are usually set somewhere that links with the topic they are talking about. Some of these interviews are often filmed with a green screen or might have a poster advertising the film or product in the background of the interview. Depending on where the interview is filmed would depend if the interview was to have background noise or not, if it was in a park there would be noises of children however if it was in a room it would be quiet with no noise. The editing of a one to one interview is often much harder to edit as its mostly done in one shot so not everything is perfect and the sounds might need changing.

BBC Interview Research

•What is your favourite interview and why?
My favourite interview is the Martin Luther King interview because its an interview where you get to learn about him and how he grew up. This is incredibly interesting because you tend to find that he isn't as confident as you would think and he has grown to embrace his ethnicity.

•What is your least favourite interview and why?

The interview with Jeanette Winterson because it was very monotone and not interesting enough for me to feel inspired or interested in. 

•What is the best question out of all the interviews you watched and why?

"What were you prevented of not doing when you were growing up to what a white child would have done?"
I chose this question because I think that this for me is something back in that time you would have had to worry about and now there is an equal opportunity and Martin Luther King helped to make that happen. 

•And the worst?
"What is your book called" 
I think that this is the worst question because the interviewer should have known the name of the book. This makes you think that the interviewer wasn't interested in the interviewee. 

•What is the most emotional response? What question prompted it?

"I wasn't allowed to go swimming because there wasn't a pool for us" This was prompted when he was asked about what he did for activities. This is sad because white people had so much more of an opportunity than any black people would. 

•Who is your favourite interviewer? Why?
John Freeman was my favourite interviewer because he was so detailed with his questions and he would also question the answers that were given and i think that this shows that he was interested in this influential figure.