Class Notes: Week 4


  • Saleem and Milton Q&A
    • Neckstrap
      • Rest of camera on chest and goofball leg out - three feet of slide right there
      • Rest a phone on the surface with a napkin
    • Music video vs interview
      • Sound is covered in music video, wav file is better than mp3 - play it off a loud iPhone speaker
        • Make your artist really rap what they mean
        • Gesturing - not actually moving
      • Storyline narrative vs live performance
        • Airs way on the side of b-roll - spend an hour doing performance
          • A lot of b-roll, not just the video - emotionally resonant
      • Depends on performer - show person talking, more story-based interview
        • Depends on delivery of person
        • Not the most compelling on camera - stay true to energy and feeling
    • Interview with b-roll footage
      • Almost all of them have someone looking directly at the camera
        • Choice to have them look
        • In the videos, it is "please help us" - see them early on looking into camera
      • Tend to now try and start with voice of person
        • Beatmaking lab - person producing killer beat is person on laptop
        • Find a way to tell them - hey I am taking you on a cool story here - isn't going to be a webcam thing
      • DukeForward - John Supko
        • Cool software - showing that process was bland - another opportunity to interview for news
        • Find something more interesting to do - something that is more fun to do - Princeton experiment with CD players
    • Pre-production
      • Documentary - what does a person do - guy who played racquetball in a crazy outfit for Heavenly Buffaloes
        • Video is about whatever it happens to be - Coffee store on bike - b-roll was clear
    • Milton - moved to Durham working as a chef, knew friends who were doing trucks
      • Cocoa Cinnamon - knowing Aurellie/Leon - did a great job of communicating who they were - relational story - not just fundraising
      • Kickstarter with soundtrack is off - as if it is an old kung-fu - flopped as a fundraising effort - could tell that he loved kung-fu, but friends who shared and asked people to donate - would not have made the Kickstarter
      • Milton loves stories - ask him to speak and decide how long before telling him to shut up
        • Not a business person - no master plan for cookie dominance -
        • Sold 9000 cookies on the bike, don't need to start a business, embrace it
      • All Durham stories are interrelated - all building brick and mortar
        • Split time of electrician, plumber - cross-pollinate all the time
        • Sort of encouragement - compassionate entrepreneurship - using that as an advantage to beat up on competitors - I learned some stuff that would really help us all
    • Kickstarter - balance asking - weird to ask for something unless you feel an emotional connection with someone
      • Café Beyu, Runaway - find a mix of emotional connection, bit of story - have to like the person who is talking to you
      • People are very savvy now  - can tell when someone is being fake - try to hang out with person long enough to push past - get them out of presentation mode
      • Stack interview - few simple questions in beginning, keep it conversational - show genuine interest - does not always work - if you are really fascinated by some aspect of the story, you should probably tell that aspect of the story
      • Don't ask for anything until you have caught a bit of their vibe - Kickstarter - people with a plan, more skeptical - want to convince that there is stability and right solution/answer for need to product, inspire that quality of production exists, make ask at end - different for each situation
      • Your videos don't have to be asking for money - more focused on storytelling
      • Milton - "If the filmmaker is not surprised, then it is not going to be a good story/documentary"
        • Find out something you did not know and surprise yourself
      • It's okay to go back and ask a second interview if you want better discussion
        • Hopefully you can convince them to open up as a selling point - video is asset for these entrepreneurs
    • Always try to make things you want to have exist in the world
      • Compromises - family needs to be fed/with survival
        • So much marketing, want to not only make marketing
      • Make it a story you would want it to see
    • Interviewee is not giving you concise answers - how do you deal?
      • Chain a couple questions together - ask a tricky double question - having to chain answers helps them
        • Keeps them speaking in full sentences
      • Straight up at end - be honestly interested and get answers you need restated for the film
      • Say that whole story in 20 seconds how would you do that - force cramming into constrained
      • At the end of the interview, I heard you say this, this, and this - would you mind putting it together and saying it succinctly - don't do it until the end of the interview
      • Doesn't always work out
    • Work Stabilizer in Adobe Premiere Pro
    • Sounds in various locations - different ambient and nat sound
      • Couple tricks - get a little bit of room tone - ease into that - drag from none to something
      • Quiet on set
      • Fill spaces between dialogue with room tone - not jarring quiet tone - can even crossfade - ease one sound bite down and another sound bite up
        • Cheat sound settings a touch - record some busier room tone and tone it down if there is some background noise
        • How to check audio - get multiple sources of sound on a person
          • Have boom, Zoom mic, lav mic, etc
      • Establishing shot of café/busy environment - brain forgives
        • Set plate on table
    • Make it up as you go, nobody know what they are doing - everyone is faking, impostor syndrome
      • LinkedIn video - San Francisco to speak at a conference, terrifying to say - I just do it
      • If you want to do it as a business, it is a constant back and forth between - making it for free and selling yourself
        • Start to learn it, tweak things that aren't working
  • Guacamole Premiere
    • Marshmallow
      • What was liked
        • Space between sound bites - giving some cut-away
        • Sound quality was great
        • Outside b-roll
        • Candid shots of Marshmallow Girl
        • How y'all filmed other things in house that were unrelated - added to personality of film - made it about her
          • Made it human - go to someone's home - doing interview
      • What we wanted more of
        • Wanted more of an establishing shot - Fayetteville Street environment
        • Clearer titles - if you know using white text, use dark background
          • Okay to go from dark to light if using the same font family
        • More on the process of marshmallow making - food stuff- show how messy some of the stages are - ties to story of struggle
        • Show ingredients - visual connection
        • Mic her while she is cooking - will be conversational
    • Milton's Cookies
      • Only able to include fraction of insights - had struggles cutting down
        • Focused in on community, family, and food time-factor with chosen and blood family
      • What was liked
        • Variety of b-roll
        • Experiential interview - mic'ing Milton while he was doing stuff
        • Able to pull off Farmer's Market illusion
        • Cookie dough - Thursday night dinner - got footage and audio from there
        • Feel as if hanging out
      • What we wanted more of
        • Community was a keyword - how do you show community - show faces of everyone that came over for dinner
          • Get sense of people that came over - mention spark people had
        • Marshmallow moment - what other people can you show to tell main character's story
        • Let the piece breath
        • Steadier shots - use a tripod
    • Mateo Tapas
      • Hard to ask right questions, have to ask him to repeat, build a story, authentic guy
      • What was liked
        • Opening sound bite - incredibly disarming
        • Great sound quality
        • Composition of interview - nice perspective lines, natural light, lighting - sitting on top floor of restaurant
        • Restaurant b-roll was nice - spent time there
        • Used b-roll well to illustrate talking points
        • When someone is  hard to interview - go to other people around him, cool to see
        • Exterior shots were nice
      • What we wanted more of
        • Establishing a wider shot of room
        • Hear from a customer, family
        • Why he specifically decided on that restaurant, more on the story of business - what happened in Spain
        • When panning from one person and panning back - expecting some change - psychologically notice when convention is broken
    • Pompieri Pizza
      • Good footage, wanted to go in direction that hadn't been done - some videos have been made on Seth - focused on fish
      • What was liked
        • Show how much he values local sourcing
        • Honest interview
        • Started narrative with pizza, food and then narrowed down to aguaponics
        • Great composition of interview - cool fish in background - tie other b-roll to interview
        • Focus on aguaponics
      • What we wanted more of
        • Talk more about challenges - great establishing shot
        • Pizza - step in front of camera, get creative and go through process of interacting with person - soda machine - close-ups, filling up mason jar - customer perspective
        • Trimming down first point
        • Explore food makes change
        • Fun creative ideas about cutting - contrast between fire and water - Watch Tower of Turkey
        • Firehouse that Pompieri is in - had to cut it though/kill baby
        • Pull more of the normal pizza stuff out and put the more interesting b-roll in
        • When did he fall in love with fish?
    • Fruit Juice and Coffee on 9th Street w Lindsey Williams
      • Struggles getting interview with Lindsey - tons of stuff on his mind
      • What was liked
        • Clearly referenced personality
        • Nice b-roll
        • Solid establishing shots
        • Great job with persevering
        • Great interview subject
        • Given situation, the video was interesting
      • What we wanted more of
        • Hearing more about Lindsey's life
        • The history of that building
        • Use the same camera
        • Better quality sound
        • Follow along with Lindsey - put mic, talk to him as he is going along with it
        • Eye-level interview angle
        • Watch out for yourself in the shot - there was a mirror next to the shot
        • Cut from shot of Lindsey on the couch to people sitting on same couch - jarring
        • Cool to get what people normally wouldn’t see
        • Archival footage/photos - figure out other ways to show stuff
        • Other interesting story - whole life of Lindsey is about talking to folks - might not have needed to talk about community, more about goofy talking to girls - more of a hook
    • Dashi
      • Hard to get interviewer to open up, be conversational
      • What was liked
        • Thought upstairs was shown - mentioned upstairs in sound - bar
        • Gorgeous footage, foreground/background, beautiful space
      • What we wanted more of
        • Walk him upstairs
        • Show b-roll that elaborates on story
        • Go back when more people are there
        • Person went to another country - tried to recreate that experience here - strange mission/journey - to recreate it here
          • Find ways to get him to visualize stuff - what it is liked when you walk into an izakaya of Japan - what do you see, what do you love - show all the things in his face - describing experience and restaurant
    • Go to these places as soon as you can - give you insights into how to film and approach subjects - places are successful to us
      • Investment in pre-production is investment in the success of your project
    • Overall, want to see more wide shots and really close shots