Sunday 27 May 2012

Reflections on training: the video interview

An activity enjoyed by many social reporters but quite difficult to capture in presentable format, is the short video interview. During training day, I decided to do a short interview (2 minutes, 5 questions maximum) interview with our convenor, Elmi.
This turned out to be much harder than anticipated. Finding a quiet corner with minimal noise/visual distractions was easy enough......and this might not be the case at the conference. Our first take was nearly three minutes long, so we decided to do a shorter second take using only three questions instead of five. The second take was ruined by the interviewer when an %$#*&!! was uttered during an unexpected break. The third take was presentable, but needed tweaking. The fourth take was just right: lengthwise, contentwise and also visually up to standard. The use of a tripod-held camera instead on being handheld by the interviewer, would have resulted in an even better clip. Further difficulties experienced resulted in the following hints:
*Have questions ready in large print easily readable by interviewer
*If possible, do a practice run
*Try to mount camera on tripod or gorrila pod, or have a third party operate it
*Interview is much easier if interviewer's hands are camera free
*Interviewer to be ready with next question at all times! An answer might be much shorter than anticipated

2 comments:

Adele van der Merwe said...

Very well done. You are both very well spoken, easy to understand and to listen to. I'm looking forward to seeing more videos/interviews during the conference.

Carina said...

Looks professional! I am impressed now that I can see all the hard work in preparation of the conference. Before 16h30 the video had delays while I was watching it. After 16h30 everything was fine. Beware of too much hard work on your side (e.g. making videos), which the viewer might exit when frustrated.