Unit 5 - Audio
Television Advert - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blpq-Iwu25s
In the interview, Meg Ryan is being interviewed by Michael Parkinson.
There is no introduction, the audience dies down and then he starts asking his questions.
He is asking her questions about her acting career and how she does not enjoy being in the spotlight.
She is being interviewed because she said how she does not like a movie spotlight but she enjoys acting.
The interviewee is talking the most because she is giving the interviewer information about her life.
Open questions are being used to promt her to give out parts of her life, but she is giving mostly closed answers.
I think that it was prepared for the interviewer but the interviewee did not know the questions beforehand, based on her answers.
The interview felt awkward because Meg Ryan kept giving short answers and then not speaking for long times and giving closed answers.
Meg Ryan is leaning away from the interviewer and she is using negative body language which makes it feel awkward, and the interviewer is leaning towards her trying to be open.
The topics covered are her acting career, where she went to school, and how she does not like to be interviewed.
There is a structure to the questions that he asks because they link in to each other. All the questions have the same theme.
I think the target audience is adults, specifically Meg Ryan fans or fans of the TV show that she was being interviewed on.
Written Advert - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/oprah-michelle-obama-no-hope-interview/
Michelle Obama is being interviewed by Oprah Winfrey.
There is an introduction where Oprah Winfrey says what the interview is about, and a quote from Michelle Obama about the topic.
In the article, there is a mix between quotes from the conversation and then the writer talking about what the conversation was like.
She is being interviewed about her thoughts on the election in America.
There are open questions being used, and the quotes are from what the interviewee was saying about the topic.
I think that the interviewee was prepared beforehand on the theme of the interview because she is giving in-depth answers
The interview did not feel awkward, but that could be because it was written and they could edit any awkward parts out.
There are clips from the spoken interview and they are both facing each other. They have open body language and they both seem relaxed so it creates a calm atmosphere in the interview.
The interview is structured well, all of the questions were related. Each question is related to what the interviewee had said before.
I think the target audience is 18+ because that is the age that people will be able to vote so it would affect them the most.
Written Advert - http://www.vogue.co.uk/article/charlize-theron-beauty-interview
In the interview, Charlize Theron is being interviewed about beauty, and the interview is written by Lisa Niven.
There is an introduction at the beginning of the page where it states who Charlize Theron is and what the interview is going to be about.
The article is written in first person, and quotes are used when she is talking about what someone has said to her.
She is being interviewed on her Dior Campaign and the beauty products that she uses.
I don't think that there are any questions used because the interview is in first person so they have written it from her perspective instead of third person.
I think the interviewee was prepped on the theme beforehand because there aren't any questions so they must know what they are talking about.
The interview is calm as it flows well between each category and they are all connected.
I think the target s for 18+ again because that is when people become interested in beauty products.
Good and Bad Points for an Interview
Good Points
Have some humour so that it keeps the audience engaged.
Make sure everyone has an open body language so that it does not seem tense.
Make sure the interview flows and that there aren't too many long gaps between talking.
Make sure that there is a comfortable tone and dont take the interviewee out of their comfort zone too much.
Have the questions prepared so that you do not struggle with asking questions.
Have an introduction thatsays who the person is and what you will be talking about.
Bad Points
Make sure there is a good ratio between interviewer and interviewee.
Don't give closed answers or closed questions because then it will not be able to flow properly.
Don't put the camera too close because it makes the people look too awkward.
Don't criticise the interviewee too much.
Don't interrogate the interviewee because it will make it awkward.
Don't patronise the interviewee
Don't come to the interview with unprepared questions.
Shooting in RAW: 1
This is an image that I have shot in RAW (NEF) and then edited in Photoshop. I changed the temperature and the tint to add more colour into Rebeccas face, and then added some exposure, and contrast to make it brighter.
I used a shallow aperture, this meant that rebecca was i focus but the rest of the background was not.
I edited this image in a similar way as before. This image has a wide aperture which means that the background is in as much as the actual model.
Shooting in RAW: 2
Testing Out Different Flashes
Silver Reflector:
This is a silver reflector that we placed so that the light would bounce off of the shiny srface and we could angle it so that it would give more light to the model. This was hard to use at first as we couldnt find out where to place the reflector.
Studio Lighting:
These are the lights that are in the studio. We placed them on the model and then took her picture.
LED Light
This was a weak light that was in the studio. It did not really change the effect of the portrait, however that may have been because there was other lights on in the studio at the same time.
Off camera flash
This was a large flash that was connected to the camera with a lead but it did not directly sit on the camera. It was very bright and we did not know how to use it well so the images came out looking odd.
Gold Reflector:
This was the same as the other silver one, however it made a gold light on the models face.
Test Interview With Emma
The first image has a shallow depth of field, caused by the aperture. The focal point is in the models eyes because they are the brightest part on the model. I think that the photographer has used a soft-box on the left side as there is a shadow on the right side of the model.
A shallow aperture has also been used on the second image. I think that the other image may have used a softbox as well to create the soft features on the models face.
I think that both images have a shallow depth of field. It is hard to tell because there is not much background, but the left image has a soft gradient which could be caused by a shallow aperture. I think that the image on the left used a harsh light coming from the right, and then used a reflected to bounce the light back on to the left side of the models face.
Flash Testing Part 2:
Contact Sheet:
This is the contact sheets that I have made for the flash testing that we did. The images were shot in RAW and JPEG fine. Shooting in RAW gives me more editing opportunities as the file sizes are not compressed.
Planning for the Audio Project
People who I could shoot:
My brother Alex: I have chosen him because he is in the army and he has lots of stories from the different training camps that he goes to. A threat would be that he lives in Chatham so it might be hard to get transport up there. If I decided to photograph him I would go to a field where he does his training at home. This would link in with the interview theme because he is very active and he would be in his natural habitat. If possible, I would like my brother to have some of his army gear on which would add context to his interview.
I think i would use a high contrast colourful picture style because his stories will be about the fun that he had there and the bright colours will reflect the positive attitude in the interview.
My Nan: She has stories about when she was in Ireland and she went to a catholic school. A threat would be that she doesn't understand technology so she might not understand what is going on. I would also have to take the pictures in her house because she cannot leave the house because she is ill. She has a chair that she always sits in so I could take the pictures there.
My Sister Phoebe: She could talk about her dancing that she does outside of school .A threat would be that she is at school 5 days a week so it would be hard to get time to interview her. She is also very timid so it may be hard to get her to talk continuously for her interview. I could take some pictures of her in her dance uniform whilst she is doing different positions.
I want the portraits that I will take to have a calm atmosphere. This is because although the army are strict, the interview will be about the fun he had when he was there and i think that a strict, tense atmosphere like in many army portraits would not portray the interview well. I would like the portraits to be composed, but have a slightly casual and calm tone to them as well.
Tim Jones - Military Photographer
Tim Jones is an army photographer. I have chosen to look at him because I want to use his high contrast in colours in my images. His images are different to most army photographers because most other ones are in black and white and create a tense feel of action and death, whereas the colours show the environment that they are in and makes the image lighter to look at.
I want my images to have a high colour contrast like in the image above, this will show that the interview is light and not sad. I will edit the images in Photoshop to make them brighter and more vibrant. I will use a mid/shallow aperture so that he is the main focus of the image. I shall have some of the background in focus which will add link with the interview.
Scott Bass - Parkour Photographer
Scott Bass is a photographer who takes pictures of free runners. I have chosen to study him because he uses low angles in his shots to give them a sense of action. Although I am not taking pictures like this I like his use of a wide aperture which shows the surroundings. I like this because it shows where they are moving from and to. I like the bright vibrancy in all of these images, which gives the images a modern feel along with the modern settings that the images were taken in. When taking my pictures,I will use his bright colours and different angles to make my images more interesting. I also like how in the image to the right, framing has been used to draw the viewers eyes to the jumping man. It also gradually fades from dark to light which draws the viewers attention towards the lighter areas as well.
Final Plan:
I have decided to interview my brother Alex. I think that he is the most interesting out of my three ideas and he is the most talkative. I will take my test shots on Thursday 18th January. I will do the final shots/audio interview on Saturday. I will then edit them on monday and Tuesday. I have chosen two days because it may rain on one day and I want nicer weather. I will then edit them on the Monday during my independant study, and write the evaluation and the feedback o that Tuesday.
I will capture the audio on the zoom mics. I will then edit the audio on Audition. I will be able to cut certain bits out, such as long gaps or too much background noise. There are two microphones on the zoom mics so it will be able to catch my speech and my brothers speech.
This was the first test shot that I have taken of my brother. He took me out to the place where he normally does his training. This was hard to get to as it had been raining and it was very slippery. I took some pictures of him in different places around the woods and then some pictures of him running. My favourite style is the full body images because it shows a lot of the background and his clothes and stance give the most context to his stories for the interview.
Editing Images from my test shoot:
This is the first image that I have edited from the test photoshoot. I lowered the exposure because he looked too bright. I then added more vibrancy because there wasn't much colour in the image. this makes the image seem positive and calm.
This is the second image I took. I edited it in the same way as the last image. I prefer the first one because his expression in the second one makes the image seem sad. The background in the first one is also more interesting than the image below.
Questions I will ask:
When was the last time you went to a training camp?
How long were you there?
What did you do when you were there?
What was your favourite activity?
What was the place like?
The questions are quite formal because that is how he speaks. The questions would not be appropriate if they were slang because that is not how he speaks.
Peer Feedback
Positive Feedback:
Good Composition. Good depth of field where my brother is in focus, and the background is clear enough to see but less focused.
The focal point is good as in some pictures he is running towards the horizon line so the viewers eye is drawn towards that area.
Constructive Criticism
Some areas on his face are too bright and you can't see the detail on his face. I can change this in Photoshop by altering the exposure and brightness.
I could ave more variety in his poses and the different angles. I will have to do this in my next shoot, I could use low angles to msske the composition more interesting.
Second Contact Sheet:
This is my second contact sheet. I feel that these pictures were more successful than my last set. For this shoot, I experimented with different poses and different angle shots. I liked the low angled shots the best as it gave the sense of action as he is moving in all of the images. We went to the forest again to shoot as this was a place that he came to often to train. I used a wide shot again to capture the background as it made sense to add it into the interview. I used a slightly deep depth of field to add the background, but on some of the close up shots I used a shallow depth of field to make the camera focus only on Alex's face.
First Edit:
Second Edit:
This is the first edit I have made for the interview. For this shot, I just told him to stand in the centre of the forest. I used a shallow depth of field to keep my brother in focus, but have the background a bit blurry. I used landscape to show where he was because the background has context to the interview. This area was where he did training when he is at home so the area is related to the audio interview.
To edit this, I used contrast and shadows to add some darker tones to the image, this made it stand out more. I also added more saturation to the image so that it seems brighter and more vibrant and it brings out the green hues in the background.
This is the second edit that I have made. For this shot, I was low down to the ground and he ran over a hill. I edited this image by adding some exposure, this made it brighter as there were some deep shadows covering his face. I used the rule of thirds to create motion as it looks like he is running into the blank space. I added more vibrance and saturation again to make the images brighter because I was shooting on a bleak day.
Third Edit:
This is my last edit. It does not have a very good composition, however I have chosen it because the picture that he is holding is of one of the cadet camps that he went on when he was in secondary school. I thought this was an important picture to add because he enjoyed his time there and it linked in very well with the interview. I edited this by adding a cool temperature on it to balance out the warm hues that were making this image look sickly. I also added exposure so that the image is brighter and easier to look at.
Audio Interview:
This is my audio interview. I recorded this on a zoom mic, and edited it on adobe Audition. He talked about what he did when ehe first started the Cadets. I used cut tools to take out snippets where there were long pauses, and when he got off topic about what he was saying.
I found this quite hard to edit, this is because I am not very experienced with Adobe Audition and there were some things that I could not do because I did not know how to do it. For example, I wanted to add more than one track onto my interview to change it up, but i was unsure so I just stayed with the longer interview. I like how good he was talking into the mic. Alex talked constantly throughout the interview and it did not seem tense or uncomfortable.
Model Release Form:
Final Outcomes:
Images:
Audio:
Evaluation:
Overall, I am quite happy with how my images and audio came out.
My favourite image out of the three final ones is the third image. This is because I used a different angle than before and it creates a feel of movement and action that was not in the other images. The low angle made it seem like he was running towards the camera. I edited this in Photoshop because the face wads too dark so I brightened it to make it easier to see. I also added more vibrancy and contrast to make it stand out and make the colours pop. I did the same to the three images that I took. I shot in RAW so that I would have more editing opportunities than in JPEG. This helped me to edit the images without making them too bright or over edited. My least favourite out of the three images was the middle one. Although the image did not look as good as the other two, it related the most with the interview so i decided to add it. I did not like this image because there is not much good lighting, it is too warm even after editing it and the glare from the window means that you cannot see the picture fully. I shot these images in a field near where he lives, where he goes to run around. This is because he was talking about his experiences in the army and this was the best setting to show what he likes to do.
I found the audio quite hard to edit. There was a lot of different things that I wanted to do but i was unsure so I could not do it. The audio was easy to record because my brother could talk quite easily so we did not have any awkward pauses or not enough audio to work with. I had prepped Alex on the questions before hand and we practised what he would say so that I knew what to ask once he had finished talking. This was helpful as it made us aware of how the interview was going to work. We did two clips but I only used on in the end. This was because I did not know how to merge two clips so i just stayed with the longer clip.
The equipment that I used was a nikon camera and a zoom mic. These were easy to use because I had used them before, however i was worried that the microphone was not recording as i could not see the outcomes.