The Essential Equipment for Recording a Quality Interview

Many times I get the question from students and faculty that have never conducted an interview, “What equipment do I need?” That question is sometimes tricky because it depends on where the interview are being conducted. There are different parts or accessories to equipment depending on the location. For example, fluorescent and tungsten lights project differently off of skin, conducting an interview outside rather than inside requires different sound equipment, an interview while someone is walking rather than sitting requires a steadicam or specific technical skills from whomever is running the camera. With each type of interview, the equipment matters. For this post, I will be discussing the essential equipment needed for a basic sit down interview in a room with one person being viewed in the camera frame.

The essential three parts necessary are:

1.Camera or a video recording device

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2.Tripod

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3. A sound recording device

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Optional if necessary:

4. Lighting equipment

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The first piece of equipment is the camera or video recording device. I say video recording device because people now record interviews off of their cell phones or other types of recording devices (ipads/tablets). Whatever video recording device that it used, make sure that the person is in the camera frame and the device is recording when you want it to record.

The second piece of equipment, the tripod, functions to hold a recording device in a stable and leveled position. What I find is that many beginners forget to check if the tripod is leveled. Many tripods have a level attached, usually  located just above the top part of the legs (see the figure below). Make sure that the bubble of the level sits in the center of the circle and the camera should have leveled frame. I level the tripod after the camera is placed on top. The reason being that when you are sliding or clipping the camera on the tripod, most of the time the legs of the tripod move, causing it to be unbalanced. I suggest making it a normal practice to level once the camera is secured on top of the tripod.

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The third piece of equipment is usually the most often neglected and is ABSOLUTELY just as important, if not more important than the video footage of an interview. That is the sound equipment. For interviews, what many beginners and in some cases novice filmmakers will do is film using the microphone that is attached to the camera or video recording device. I highly recommend only using the sound from the camera mic as backup. When using the camera mics, the sound in the room both near and far is captured and there is no way of separating that sound after it is recorded. For some reason many people think that a sound editor can listen to a sound recording and separate all of the individual sounds of an audio track. That is a unfortunately a myth. There are certain ways to save all of the separate sounds as one file, but when opened in a professional sound recording software, all the individual sounds are separated on different tracks. That only works when sound is recorded on separate channels (i.e. an interviewee is recorded on one channel and the interviewer has a separate mic and is recorded on a different channel). The sound that the camera mics record are all placed on the same audio channel, so the sounds cannot be separated afterwards. With that said, for conducting interviews whereby the voice of the interviewer will not be in the final video project, I suggest using a wireless lavalier microphone, like the sennheiser above. One end is a receiver that plugs into the camera or recording device, the other end is the microphone that clips on to the interviewee (shown below). If if interviewer’s voice will be in the final video, I suggest using an additional wireless lavalier. If the video recording device does not have ports for the sound to plug into, the easiest suggestion I have for a basic interview is route the wireless lavaliers into an H4n (shown above). The lavaliers should come with an XLR cable that plugs directly into the H4n. For technical questions on how to use any of the equipment, a GOOGLE search is your best friend 🙂

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The final piece of equipment, and it is optional, is lights. I say optional because in some settings the combination of the room lights as well as the many ways video recording devices can be manipulated, lighting equipment is not always necessary. Also lighting equipment is usually the heaviest piece of equipment and takes the longest to set up. If it is necessary, make sure you give yourself some time. For the majority of basic interviews, a large soft box or two small soft boxes (shown above) are all that will be needed. Again, for best ways to set them up, GOOGLE is your best friend 🙂

I hope this helped!

Ameer

Digital Champions Update

Hey Siffers,

We have been working diligently with getting many of the Digital Champion Videos complete. Here is the first one. If you do not already know what a Digital Champion is, here is a brief description:

The Digital Champion Fellowship program supports faculty in implementing innovative models of instruction, such as creating online or partially online courses, implementing flipped classroom models, or incorporating active learning into your course using technology. Awardees receive:

  • $3,000 in professional development funding to be used for faculty support, GTA assistance, travel, conference attendance or other professional supplies. Funding available July 1, 2015.
  • Help developing course materials from CII staff and members of the Student Innovation Fellowship program.
  • Support from a community of innovative faculty and instructional staff as you implement ideas.

So now that you know what it is, Check out the first video on Dr. Gladys Francis.

 

Learning from a Legend

This week I was able to shadow a great musician and filmmaker from Malaysia named Pete Teo (google him). He is a Chinese born Malaysian and I really got to learn a lot from him. His journey that led him to film started as a music composer, to songwriter, to musician, to actor, to filmmaker, and now organic farmer. I kid you not that is my same journey. Before I met Pete I was shopping for an organic coffee farm.  So here are some of the take aways from our conversations.

1. As a filmmaker, it doesn’t matter what equipment you use. It can be a cel phone, an ipad, a digital camera, or even a camera that shoots on 35mm. Whatever it is you use to record media will add to the effect or character of your film. The media you use says the time period you live in as well as many other things such as social class. This part of our conversation reminded me of my film theory classes whereby we learned that the camera is actually a character and not just a mechanical device.

2. Pete’s films are political. He is a reformer and wants to see his country united. As a  result, he has been questioned and followed by the secret police of Malaysia. He released 15 short films on the internet 2 days apart and gained instant fame. His first film had 15 million views in less than two days. He broke a record and had to change the server a few times do to the popularity. You can see his famous 15 shorts called “15 Malaysia” where each short addresses a taboo of the country. The website is “www.15malaysia.com”

3. The problems that Pete addresses are cross-cultural. It reminds me of how diverse Georgia State is and how our projects reflect that diversity. Some of the projects that we are currently pursuing can be the solutions for someone thousands of miles away. I will keep that in mind more now while I work.

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The pictures above are with me and Pete Teo. The picture where I am on the left is me, Pete and Chris Escobar (the executive director of the Atlanta Film Festival). The picture with me in the middle is me, Pete and Daniel Robin (The Georgia State film professor that I attribute with having the greatest impact on my mechanics and editing for film. I had know idea he would be at dinner so it was a pleasant surprise for me)

Trusting the Team!

I worked with some great teams this semester. There were times when I had an idea for something and they had another idea and in most cases we tried both ideas and chose the best solution. Sometimes when one team member finishes one part, and in my case the visual, other team members may not know what they truly want until they see it. It is just a natural process when doing visual work. We then worked together and made changes accordingly and the projects turned out great! SIFFING is a team sport and we have to play towards our team members skills!

All these new words like SIFFING, I’m making them up as I go. What can I say, I’m a SIFFER!

The Art of Being A SIF

it has been only one semester of being a SIF and there is so much I have learned and want to continue to learn. In order to do this work there are some key skills that I found work better than others, here are a few.

1. You have to be organized: you may be counted on for multiple projects and the work is obviously something you are capable of doing but you also have to check the syllabus of your classes and plan accordingly. If you are only working 20 hours a week, you must plan those hours out accordingly.

2. You have to have good communication skills: some projects have deadlines and some don’t but as you are working on them, keep your team updated and make sure you respond back to emails in a decent amount of time.

3. Be patient: Some projects take longer than others and there can be multiple factors that prolong a project. On one project this year, we worked around the professors schedule and the span of dates that worked were over a month though completing the project could be done much faster. The project turned out Great!

4. Get to know your team: Everyone on your team has a great set of skills. Better to know what those skills are and how each member likes to work. This allows for your team to work more efficiently.

5. Have fun: these projects are amazing and when you get to see the final product, which may have been passed around to several team members after your part is complete, it can be one of the most accomplishing feelings!!!

Hope these help others and feel free to add on to the list!

Featuring Dr. Gladys Francis

Hi SIFfers,

It is now the end of the years so I am going to be posting much of the successes that happened this semester. Many of them are coming to fruition now at the end of the semester. Here is the first of the installment by myself and Ryan Cagle. We are really proud of this. It is the first of our Digital Champions Series. This features…..well watch the video and it will explain it all. We still have to add credits at the end but the meet of it is there. Hope everyone is doing well with projects and finals.

Ameer

Digital Champions

I am currently working on the first video of the 2 this semester that is on the Digital Champions. These professors have outstanding teaching strategies where they incorporate technology into their curriculum. They teach Hybrid courses where some instruction is in the classroom while other instruction is over the net or using technology. The first professor (myself and Ryan Cagle) was Dr. Gladis Francis. She has this very exciting way of you social media, such as twitter. Her students have to summarize the essence of a chapter in French on twitter. This limits them to only 140 characters. According to one her students we interviewed, that can be more challenging than someone may assume but she emphasized that she learned so much more French in Dr. Francis’s classroom. Hopefully I will be able to post it within the next week or so.

Ameer

Balancing school and work

Hi all,

I have found at times during the semester it is difficult to keep up with grad level reading and projects at the same time. They balance out real well for the most part but for the weeks that are school heavy with tests and papers due it can be rough to say the least. But one thing I have done is keep the teams I am apart of up to date as to what is going on and make in project adjustments as needed. Sometimes that could mean working a project more the week before or the week after a busy school week. All in all, my grades are up to par and my projects have been moving forward in a nice way. I have talked to other SIFS about this so I know we all have been doing are best to find that balance. Keep up the good work everyone!!!

Unmanned Aerial Systems

Hi Everyone,

I bought a drone quadcopter last week. The one I bought was an Ares Ethos FPC. It comes with a camera that shoots in HD mounted on the bottom of it. I am pleased with it so far. I’m really happy I got the economic quadcopter first before I bought the really expensive one for several reasons. Mainly because the likelihood that you will crash a drone is 100%. It takes practice to land, how to maneuver in the air, how to not panic when it is not doing what you want. One of the scariest things is flying around people. No matter if you are really high in the air on down low, when you are not secure in your flying skills the awareness that you will get from the quadcopter dropping out of the sky out of control and hitting someone, or causing a car accident is VERY real. I suggest if you ever fly one to do it in an open field away from trees and people. I am attaching clips of me flying at grant park. It is really cool when you get the hang of it. Definitely go cheap first before you spend too much money and you have to pay more to fix it after a bad crash.

Ameer