DOCUMENTARY: Testing Ideas

The only thing we could really test was the position we had our interviewee in the camera and how the clip mic's and boom mic work together. Our first try was in the interview workshop at the beginning of the unit and we had a small session with the mic's not long after. We concluded that we definitely want to follow the 'rule of thirds' and make sure we use the clip mic's on every interviewee as they do really bring up the volume in their voices. 

We had a run through with the clip mic's with Jack answering our own questions we were going to ask our gay and straight teenagers. Once we had gone through the questions we realised we didn't have very many and we thought we may as well make as much use out of the interviews as we can while we're there. As a result of this we added a couple more questions, about the future and if they think homophobic remarks and abuse in football will ever change. 

After this we tested the questions and positioning with one of our actual interviewees, Carl. Our main character who is gay. Jack and Callum filmed his interview at his house to see if the questions were fitting and how good Carl was in front of the camera, being our main character we wanted him to feel comfortable talking to us while we were capturing his every word.

Screenshot of test interview

After thought of the test interview
I was at work and was unable to make the test interview. Once I saw the footage they produced I thought it was good but there were a couple of things which I thought weren't quite right. The shot was slightly overexposed, Jack also thought this and they said they need to remember to think about changing the exposure in every location to get the best lighting and therefore, making our shots aesthetically pleasing. 

Another thing I noticed was that the camera was more focused on the background objects which for this test were flowers in a vase. Carl was slightly blurrier which was not the look we wanted. Obviously, we want Carl to be in complete focus and the background objects slightly blurred. In the real thing we know we want something football-related behind him, ideally, if Carl has any football trophies or photos from before, we will arrange them appropriately. We have learnt from this to make sure the interviewees are the most focused-on things in the shots.

The light was above him and was quite bright on his forehead, we realised this wasn't the right angle we wanted the light to come from. In the real interview, we will move him to another room and block out the sun but let a good amount of natural lighting through in the real interview. We know the things to look for now in future also