Andrei Allen UCA Broadcast Media Blog

Before i transcribed each of the interviews, i checked out how much it would cost for a transcriber service, and what to expect with the level of service they provided and the costs that it would entail:





Because i had over an hours worth of interviews, and i needed my interviews transcribed as soon as possible, for me to get a next day service would of cost too much!


So instead I researched into templates; not finding anything to my liking so i created my own template.

Once i had created my template, i then began to transcribe the interviews one by one ( LOOOOOOOOONG!) Because i can almost touch type (to a degree) i watched some programs while i typed up the audio interviews, going back over them to add bits that i might of missed out or correct spelling mistakes.



However the good thing with doing this is i saved myself loooads of money! Because, the interviewees did stumble up quiet a few times on some of their answers; having not being used to getting interviewed, also, i was able to cut out a lot of answers that i thought were not necessary, or were no good, only keeping in answers that i thought were useful; certain times putting multiple timestamps on on a question that the interviewee might of given multiple answers.


Here is the final result in this blog post:

Interviews and transcriptions 

Today i was up at 6am to set out at 6.40am to get to canterbury for 7.30am; so that i could setup and film the fortnightly group health and safety + catch up meeting that the stonemasons, and all of the other workers whom are involved in any aspect of keeping the cathedral alive have. The meeting lasted for an hour, to which, within that time i had a main camera set up getting a wide shot coverage of the meeting, and i used the secondary camera with the 50mm prime lens to get various close ups of the apprentices, and some of the workers. Where Darren was conducting the meeting, i placed the Zoom H4m recorder next to his arm, out of frame and had it recording everything he was saying, as most of my main contributors were next to him during the meeting.











After the group meeting, i conducted the interviews with my main contributors.


I talk more about it in this blog post:

Interviews and transcriptions



I also filmed footage of Jake, Emlyn (former apprentice), Sam (former apprentice), and Darren talking over work in the drawing board office.







I filmed footage of Darren and Jake working on the scaffolding on the Great South occulus window, taking measurements for the templates that Jake was drawing up in the office to go towards not only part of his CWF qualification, but also the stone mullions templates that the rest of the stonemasons are carving out.






I filmed footage of Darren working on his own as well, taking measurements and other activites towards the window, with other workers in the background working casually.







I got a few establishing shots aswell of the Scaffolding, the stone at the ground floor of the scaffolding, and also the front entrance to the workshop, however, i'm not too sure if i'm happy with these shots, so i might retake them when i go up to the cathedral to film the stone being put in the great south window.









Today was a decent day, got quite a few shots that i was hopping for, and hopefully this besides the final shots of the stone being put in, should wrap up all the coverage of footage that i will need.


Here are the call sheets for the days shoot:

Throughout the filming that i'd done today, i also conducted interviews in the morning. The people whom i interviewed were, Scott, Darren, Steve and Jake.




Post - interview

In order to help me prepare my sync script, i transcribed all of the interviews so that it would be easier for me to make a paper edit of the interview, cutting out the unnecessary time of scrubbing/browsing through the audio and picking out sound bites.

Transcribe the interviews

Here are the all 5 interviews transcribed below.

For todays workshop, we had a seminar on editing with a picture editor from the BBC called John, whom shared with us his workflow of editing up footage for factual programs, sports programs and so forth, letting us know quick workaround work flows to speed up post-production, and also showing us editing techniques that he used on some of the programs that he worked on, namely Inside out London edition. Here is one of them below:



http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0071mkv/clips
Rest of the clips are on this website



The software that he uses most of the time is Final cut pro 7, but he also emphasised that the software is only a platform for you to work on, and that you mainly need to concentrate on the skill of editing itself and not necessarily the software, that the skill should come first then the software after.


We were also set a sync assembly exercise, we were given footage of an interview, the transcript of that interview, with segments of the text highlighted out for us to cut those specific words/sentences together, and also cut away clips to edit together with the interview.

Here is my end result:

Todays shoot mainly consisted of me filming Jake in the drawing board room, where he'd finished a written assignment he was working on for two-three weeks (Hooray!) And also Mirella working in the drawing board room, with Steve visiting occasionally, plus an interview with Mirella.












I managed to get some sequence shots because it was more of a relaxed environment today.








The equipment that i used, which i also used yesterday was a canon 7D with a zoom lens 17-85mm and i used my Canon 60D with a prime lens 50mm, and throughout the shoot i would use both of these cameras providing multiple coverage to a scene that i was filming.

A problem that i found working in the drawing board room which i didn't notice whilst filming was, because of the tube lighting used in the room, and how it was placed throughout the room, the white balance would change whenever i moved the camera around, also, with the primary source of light coming from the window; this too would add to the unevenness with the lighting in the room, hence, depending on where i positioned the camera would determine the colour tone of the scene filmed.
Because i didn't have enough time to set up lights i was not able to balance out the lighting in the room, however, if i were to do this scene again, i would ask if i could maybe turn off the lights and only rely upon the lights coming through the window, because when i originally filmed in the drawing board room when i was doing research, the footage did not change it's colour tone/white balance.







I also filmed the apprentices playing cards as well, providing multiple coverage for the scene, using the wide angle zoom lens for primary coverage, and getting close-ups with the 50mm prime lens, whilst making sure that i didn't cross the line. However, i filmed two separate versions, one version one side of the line, and the next the opposite side of the line, to then choose out of the two.








The interview with Mirella went exceptionally well! The warm up questions prepared her nicely to then answer the main questions, and she gave fantastic answers, to a point where i was imagining what footage could go with her responses during the interview!
During the interview i used the questions for guidance, to sort of navigate me towards where i needed to be heading, and sometimes, the answers given from Mirella would answer a few of the questions at the same time.
At the end of the interview i asked her for feedback as well, and recorded it, so that i know how i could improve on preparing for an interview in the future, where this was my first proper interview that i've ever done. The feedback i received from her was very useful, as it was her first time getting interviewed too, so she advised me on what questions worked well with her (ones she favoured) and which questions to possibly drop/amend, as they were too confusing, or weren't specific enough; those questions were:

What have you learnt so far? (too broad a question)
What's your favourite aspect of what you've learnt so far?

What are the challenge you face with continual work of keeping the Cathedral alive?
Because Mirella and Scott are only 2nd year students, they do work that they get set, at the moment they're not on that level, however Jake is as he's a 4th year student.

How do you feel that you've improved on this apprenticeship in comparison to when you first started?
(Always going to improve!) However, she did say that her opinion towards that answer was a biased one, and that maybe someone else would answer it more passionately.

The last question i asked her went down really well (is there anything that i have not asked you about etc...), as she had a lot to say, that she'd felt was left out.


Conclusion

I'm very pleased with the results that i've gotten, and the research that i'd done earlier during the week definitely helped me a lot! and i don't think i would of been as prepared if i was just to create some questions and not thoroughly research interviewing techniques properly.