Second day interview

Today, we interviewed the old barista, i can see how much difference between the old barista and young barista that we filmed yesterday. In old barista’s cafe, it gives me a strong feeling of ‘old’. there are a lot of senior Italian people are metting together, and have a couple of coffee, start to spend time on playing cards. We love this kind of nature expressing. They are all super cute, and told us many things about coffee in Italy. At that moment, i can deeply understand what the exact meaning of documentary, is to tell their story in a genuine way, and you can actually be touched and  learned from them.  In the interview part, we were trying to ask many questions as possible as we can, they are all satisfied to answer it.

I thought the interview was absolutely excellent from the interview and footages, but when we checked the footages in the laptop, the audio is really bad, that we cannot se it and have to reshoot again, we sorted out with the problem of the satan and mic button.

We have learned from it and we hope that we would never have this kind of problems happened again. Still learning!!

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interview done-first day

in this midterm break, we decided to film some footages for our documentary, we are going to film in two days, one day for the old barista,”the one star cafe’, one day for the young baristas, ‘il fornilio’ i was quite excited to film the documentary with my team members.

in the first day(shooting in il fornilio)  we were all stressed out and panic when we encountered with some technical issues, like the color adjusting and the audio, but the issues are all sorted out, even thought it wasted some time in the actual shooting, luckily, the interviewer was quite happy to work with us and no complain at all. The shooting goes fine and we were all kind of confidence with the footages, the lighting in that cafe is a little bit dark, but it is what we are looking for. There is a problem that in the progress of barista  making coffee, the shots are quite dark(because there is no too much lighting in front of the coffee machine) and then could not see very clearly. We sorted it out with the lighting from other place.

this is our interviewing place, I quite like this background in the scene where we have been waiting for a customer to finish her meal for long time, but it deserves. hahah

In the actual interviewing scene, we didnt use the lighting, because there is one soft lighting in the top of the interviewer, so it can gives a natural moment.

In this first interviewing, I have learned:

• check all the gears before interviewing, avoid the issue of audio volume level, the camera color adjusting.
•  having the footages that accordance with the interviewing
• understand the interviewing place  might be out of control, like cafe, there are quite a lot of customers and the audio of interviewing might be  not clear.
• talk to the interviewee like a friend,capture their natural expression.

 

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Self-Assessment

Attending class every class and take notes efficiently.

1. Regular post (2 or 3 posts a week) – Two of them are thoughts and ideas from the lecture and class discussion, one are from the self-reflection and Reading
2. Check out my own social networking sites- is awareness of myself as a social media maker, to be more interaction.
3. Weekly Reading is required.

 Blog Post —D

During six weeks, I think I did a quite a good job in weekly reading and have an awareness of myself as a social media maker.

For the post, I have been updated 2 or 3 blogs each week, which include the lecture and class reflection and also the reading reflection. To be honest, I am not that kind of person that like posts a lot; it was quite annoying for me to update it. However, in this semester, I am trying to change it and updating my blog often as much as I can. I give myself D for the post

  Social networking site interaction—D

This is the most important part that I have learned via this course, for social sites, I used to play it as the role of entertainment and making friends with someone else. However, now for me, I would put myself as a professional role and try to make myself as a filmmaker and photographer. This is kind of big encouragement for me, because I am willing to absorb more knowledge in professional filed and share with my friends in social sites.

I have been working for my documentary in this semester, and the social sites gave me a big platform to advertise my documentary. What I have learned in this documentary promoting, I understand how big influence the social networking site is. I used to put those sites, as my entertainment needs, like chatting with my friends, sharing things we all like. However, they have more useful ways.  Not only as the way of transiting the news, like post a status say that I am doing this documentary, here I come! But also I am trying to expand the use of the weibo, like I would follow the people I am interested in or who can give me good advices or opportunities. And then start to notice their personality and daily life. After that, gradually comment on their status, images or videos and express my ideas in documentary. After that, I start to @ or retweet them in weibo that they would notify the news that I have been posted.

3.    Reading–D

For the reading part, I have read essential readings in each week. I would put the reading reflection in my student blog.

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Summary Post

I am Vickie, I am kind of person that love the visual side of the world. I would like to use images, videos and body language to express my ideas and perspectives. Basically, I am studying film and TV in my second year. I do enjoy the progress of making films and working as a group. I definitely defined myself as a visual person. I would feel passion when I see something beautiful and stunning. I love taking photos and always take photos of something that never noticed by someone else, but it has another side of beauty. That’s why I can be cameraperson and cinematographer in our film project.

My ID mission is to create a platform and build up my professional reputation in filming and photography, then being known by the employers. Secondly, is to promote my documentary film for Chinese overseas student. Thirdly, is to accumulate some inspirations for my dreaming job-weeding photographer.

My hub is based on favours.me. This is a very nice site that I can put all my social networking sites here and attribute the works through favors. It gives me a strong fulfillment (I have been done so many works in here) and builds up my confidence to be a social media maker (keep going with my works). To be honest, when I open my hub, this is the whole world of my social circle not include the social sites in China. It gives me a strong sense of being professional.

My ID map is much more messy than showing in the diagram. Mostly, I am more using weibo (Chinese Twitter) for promoting my documentary, and then embed with my personal weibo and Chinese facebook. Pinterest, tumblr always feed my extend website for inspiration in wedding photography, and instagram is for my daily photography, as the way of accumulation, and also embed with some of social sites to share with my friends.

• Tumblr: it’s the place that I can follow the filmmakers, producers, photographer and all related to my professional field. And then I would comment or like their post. For most of time, they would not reply me back, which is a little bit disappointed, but sharing and liking their ideas that give me a creative and more innovative thinking.

• Weibo (Chinese Twitter): for quick texts, videos, images and audio. A significant tool for Chinese people to transit the news and advertise in terms of the big circle of the social networking net in China. This is the reason why I choose weibo to promote my documentary. There are so many Chinese students in here are using weibo, and updating their status very often. I am using this as a platform and trying to follow their status, and it helps me to understand their personality and daily life.

• Pinterest: for inspiration. Visual things make me excited. I can find so many images that I like, especially they have a lot of innovative and nice ideas for the wedding. This is also the way of embedding with my own extend website about the wedding photography.

• Linkedln: A professional site that build up your own profile.

• Instagram: easily upload my photos to share in a community. And then sharing with my friends in different social networking sites. A visual mind

What encourage me a lot is Mypool, I am kind of person only sharing my images, status and videos with the friends I know. When I upload some images in Pool, especially the one called “feeling be loved”, that surprised me a lot. I have never expected any comments or like from ABC pool editor and also they featured my image as their project. This is kind of encouragement that everything can be possible if we are involved in the community. Like the reading from week3, it demonstrates, “user-generated media (UGM) have become a social phenomenon. It assumes that the audiences consciously choose from the medium that could fulfill their needs and that they are able to recognize their reasons for making media choices.” I could fulfill my needs in the way of participating and producing.

This is the weibo (Chinese Twitter) that I have been used for advertising and expanding my documentary, I have been thinking for making a documentary for Chinese overseas student for a long time since I came to Melbourne, but never thought about how to make it possible. This course actually activates my mind and let me have an awareness of how to make it in reality. I start to set up a new page only for the concept of documentary. I want my username to be stood out that people would notice and start to follow me. My username in English means Vickie wants to make a documentary for you.

I will post the information in my doc weibo. However, I have no any fans in my website and the news have to expand out via people, so I start to follow a lot of people, basically, I have quite a lot of friends in my personal weibo, I would add them first, and ask them to expand the news to more people, and also post or retweet the status in my personal social networking sites. Then I will add some of people that I don’t even know but in Melbourne. I start to follow these people who have different ideas, mostly, I added the people who love the film. In this slide. There are kind of two different groups that I pay more attention to. In the left side, there are the directors in documentary, TV producer and master media student who studied in RMIT. There are all responding me back when I post the news, which really surprised me a lot. And we still are chatting with each other via the conversation box. For this master student, we have became friend and we talked a lot via texting message and he wants to help me with the camera and gave a lot of suggestion. Liu is the director who directed the USA overseas student documentary that well-known in USA. I retweet his documentary video and I am kindly happy that I don’t really respect his respond, but he gave the respond back and gradually we have some interaction in weibo and he is glad to help me if I have any questions. Sophy is the program producer from Hunan channel, which is the first place program in China. We are all from the same place and kind of easy to communicate. I talked to her that I have the idea of making a documentary and she thinks its is very good idea, and she said that if I make this doc, she probably would like to put it in the channel and watch by more people. This is kind of exciting and gives me more encouragement. In the right side, there are some unions in Melbourne. Like the media company, the well-known documentary, RMIT student union. Those are the union that most of Melbourne student would follow and keep the eye on about their posts. This is kind of hard to chat with them via conversation box, but I am trying to retweet them and also post with their name, they would notify in their page.

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IM wk5 Reading Reflection

Following you: Disciplines of listening social media

 

This essay is kind of engaging with a set of modes of paying attention online, and to propose that they be considered practices of listening.

The concept of listening will allow us to analyze the various affordances of online attention, and to access the ways in which we listen also shape us as late modern subjects.

 

Listening is not a common metaphor for online activity

 

The author categorized the listeners into three groups, individual, politicians, and corporations. And depends on the creation of different qualities of listening, he considered three modes “ reciprocal listening, background listening, and delegated listening. Here is a quotation from the reading “ these modes are not exclusive, nor are they singular: they can be adopted by any category of user, be they representing themselves or acting on behalf of a company or political party, further, internet users may regularly switch between modes of listening throughout a day.

 

So Like twitter, it offers a young platform and functions for most users as a continuous background presence, a steady stream of message. It connects the life with the friends, family. Companies and colleagues,

But also we have complex ramifications of how they can manage across their life.

 

There is a new word called “lurking” means that some people are also underneath the talking, and always witness the whole talk but no discussion at all. They are always tracking on other people’s contribution and directly contribute to the community by acting as a gathered audience; neither agreeing nor disagreeing, just listening. This kind old people we call it lurkers

But it is different from the definition of listeners. They are more embedded with and as a part of networked engagement. Listening more usefully captures the experience that many Internet users have and then ”speaking up” as the only significant forms of participation.

 

There is a listening mode called background listening, lie in twitter, we are using as text based up to 140 characters, it is as a way of many to many. So it is very easy just scanning the message very quickly. It is kind of like “ambient intimacy’ that mentioned in the reading.

 

 

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Observational Exercise

This week,  I had a second cooperation with my group members, we shot a observational film in cafe.

Unfortunately, we were planning to shoot inside the cafe and observing the barista in making coffee, referencing to our documentary. At that time, the cafe is quite busy and they were not allowed us to shoot inside. Therefore, we decided to shoot outside the cafe and observed  the people outside the cafe shop.

It is quite interesting to shoot them, because they actually did the things as usual, but in the camera, it is quite nice to look at them in the scene.

we shot the people talking, the wide shot of cafe, the close up shot of foods and people.

In the observational film, to be a filmmaker, we are actually expecting something unexpected that perfectlize the film,  we never know what is gonna happen in observing. However, we can plan that what you would like to be in the film.

In the film called “time indefinite” there is kind of observational mode to interactive mode.

In the film, director Ross McElwee gets married, finally putting an end to his family’s worrying; his grandmother dies; his wife Marilyn has a miscarriage; and his father, a medical doctor, dies suddenly within a week of McElwee’s wife’s miscarriage. His mother had died of cancer ten years earlier and so McElwee returns to his father’s house, where his father’s housekeeper ministers to him about Christianity and faith.

McElwee goes to visit his friend Charleen, who is now living alone in a new apartment. She had lived on an island in an old two-story house abandoned by the U.S. Army; she and her husband worked to restore it and lived together there for years before becoming estranged. Charleen then lived there alone, but on returning home from a trip she finds that her husband has set fire to the house and died downstairs at the grand piano in an arson/suicide. Charleen has her husband’s cremated remains in a bag inside a box and tries to get rid of them but can’t bring herself to do it. From Wikipedia

the filmmaker is trying to get more information from them, he wants Charleen to get ride of her husband’s cremated into the sea, this is going to be a very nice scene. However, Charleen disobey the filmmaker’s idea and  does not want to get ride of her husband’s cremated.

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Documentary Interview Lighting

In this documentary, I am still taking the role of cinematographer and DOP assistant. I have seen a lot of documentary that the lighting seems to be the natural lights in the room, because it all happened in the real time, but we still have to light up the characters when they are talking. I would not choose to use strong lighting resources, because we are not shooting in the studio. Therefore, I have to look at the shooting place ASAP, and then try to use more natural lights and get one more light for light up the character’s face and make them looks nature and comfortable, the strong lighting source would not make the character feels comfortable when talking.
 

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Interview

this week ,our tv workshop is about interviewing, and I was playing the role in interviewer. I understand that it is quite hard to actually ask the question in a appropriate way and also help the interviewee to explore their story and also help us to get more footages.

Preparation:

• Do research on your topic, and if possible, on your subjects. The better prepared you are, the less time you’ll take and the better equipped you’ll be to handle any curve balls.
• Develop a few themes and come up with 3 or 4 questions for each theme.
• When possible, do a pre-interview with your subject. They’ll often reveal information you hadn’t contemplated before.
• Read your questions out loud, or to a third party, to make sure they’re clear.
• Scout out a location for the interview, taking sound and lighting into consideration.
• Have a basic structure for your film/project sketched out and as well as an idea of how each interview subject fits into that structure. This may change as you go along, but you should have a general idea from the beginning.
• Think about doing some group interviews – they often don’t run as smoothly, but disagreement makes for good content and illustrates conflicting points of view.
• If you’re interviewing several people for one project, you may find 1 or 2 questions you want to ask at each interview. It allows for varying perspectives on a single issue.

The Interview:

• If the interviewer is not included in the film, make sure your questions don’t need to be heard in order to understand the question. You can ensure this by teaching your subject how to incorporate the question into the answer.
• Try not to interrupt when someone is answering a question. People open up and talk when they’re on camera – give this time to happen.
• Stay away from questions that can be answered with a “yes” or “no.” Open-ended questions work best.
• Listen to the answers you’re being given and a) make sure they can stand alone, and b) make sure they’re clear. If not, ask the subject to rephrase.
• Don’t be afraid to stray from your list of questions. Following up on interesting answers is the key to a successful interview.
• Wherever possible, look for anecdotes or stories. Stories make a more memorable impression than simple answers.
• Don’t talk or make noises while the subject is responding.
• Start off with the easier questions, and once the subject is warmed up move into deeper areas. Don’t be afraid to ask hard-hitting or difficult questions.
• At the end of the interview, you can always ask the subject if there’s something they wanted to discuss that you didn’t hit on. There usually is.

 

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First Interview Exercise

We have done the first interview exercise in tutee, this is the first time we actually get together and film as a group. I was quite nervous to be a interviewer, because i have never done this type of film before. I prepared some questions that related to subject’s topic(Italy Exchange) There are some points i have been learned in this shoot

• be attention and smiling to the interviewee. The interviewee is actually looking at you while doing the interview, it is quite important to pay attention to them, and give their message that i am listening to your words. smile  to the interviewee all the time, make them feel not nervous.
• question from surface to deep gradually. firstly i will just ask some questions that related to her daily life in Italy. something embarrassed and memorable. And then I will ask her about the long distance from Australia to Italy,  and home sick. what she feels about being alone.
• dont interrupt interviewee when she/ he is talking. this is not polite to cut in his/her talking, it might distract them and forget about what they want to talk in next step.

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What should we do in pre-production

• Choosing a subject
• Dong the research
• Deciding who and what are going to be the subjects of the film
• Assembling a crew
• Choosing what equipment will be necessary
• Deciding the method, details and timetable of shooting

 

“filmmaking is athletic, not aesthetics”

 

–the thought and planning you invest before shooting ,and how thoroughly you anticipate problems, go far to ensure a successful and trouble-free shoot. More importantly, they help ensure that the movie is a coherent entity.

 

 

 

 

 

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