Poetic Documentary Content

At the weekend I interviewed my granddad for the poetic documentary, as well as my other grandparents for practice with the equipment and how to conduct an interview for when we get contributors for the longer film. For the documentary shooting exercise we had recorded to both a shotgun mic and lapel mic in separate channels so I used the same setup here.

The RODE NTG-4 which we will be using for interviews

Before I interviewed my granddad I made a list of questions to ask him based on some of the things he talked about in our initial conversation. This is likely what we will do with contributors for the second film, listening to their stories in our initial meeting and then using that to guide the conversation if they decide to be a part of the film later on.

The photograph we are wanting to use of him is when he is riding his bike in a race, so many of the questions were open-ended to just let him talk about his experiences, why he liked cycling, why he had to stop (because of National service) etc. I also prompted him to go into detail about other things he talked about which I didn't know, such as the other people in the photograph and topics he'd brought up in earlier conversation when I wasn't recording. Something I noticed also whilst interviewing was that it helped to distract the subject if they were given the photo to look at whilst talking - so I'll consider that for the future.

A major problem whilst I was recording was the battery draining on the Zoom I was using as a result of using phantom power for the shotgun microphone, so I will pass this on to Jamie, our sound recordist, so we can be prepared with extra batteries if needed.

I brought the selection of photographs back to Sheffield and on Monday asked the staff in Harmer how to make a high-resolution scan of them. They showed me how to make a scan in the photography rooms and I made two high-res scans of each - one in 400dpi and one in 600dpi. I checked the quality at home and gave the scans and interview files to Elliot to transcribe and start thinking about the structure for the poetic film.

I've also been contacted recently by a composer in Leeds who might be interested in making some music for our film. At the moment we're not sure what music we want or even if the film needs music, as we won't be sure of the tone until the sound is added on to the photo. However, as a huge lover of film soundtracks myself I sent him some examples of tracks with a similar style, pace and tone to what we're looking for to see what ideas he has, and he says he'll start developing some ideas soon. One example I gave him was Jon Hopkins 'Campfire' which I added to the new high-res scan of the photo and sent as an example of the visuals and the length of the poetic piece.

After transcribing the interview we will be able to start editing together the poetic piece next week to receive advice and improve before presenting the final film.