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Conducting Documentary Interviews


Max Field

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In Spring One Plants Alone was accessible art that helped make the careers of Vincent Ward, Leon Narbey, Alun Bolinger.

Well, lets face it, you can make anything you want if you've got funding. Most people have to go out and seek funding, which means the final product must recoup at least the initial amount.

 

Anyone in NZ with half their creativity still intact just adored it. Was there sufficient reason to make it? Um, yes.

A cinephile art fanatic, can find meaning in anything. If someone dumped a bucket of paint onto a canvas, that's considered 'art' with meaning. When someone tries to tell a cohesive story, that a general audience will understand, that's NOT considered 'art' because it's too "normal".

 

It's far easier to dump a bucket of paint on a canvas, then it is to learn how to paint, find a great subject and paint a masterpiece that everyone will enjoy. Look at the great works of some of the best painters in the world, they are flat-out amazing pieces that a general audience will recognize and most can appreciate.

 

I'm far more in awe of filmmakers who tell a cohesive story for the masses. It's FAR more difficult to get someone who has zero interest in a particular subject, to enjoy a product they didn't expect to enjoy. In my book, in my opinion, tell a compelling entertaining story first.

 

 

It is a problem with human nature that ones own particular experience is often confused with the universal, with what otherwise might be usefull general principal. Confusion between the particular and the universal.

I was asked for advice on an internet forum, which is a place for people to post their opinions. My opinion is based on 25 years experience, which means it probably has some level of accuracy.

 

Unfortunately, there is a universal formula to making pretty much everything. If you follow the formula, you will get the product most people expect. If you bake a cake and leave out the rising agent, you don't get fluffy cake, you get flat brownies. Both are plenty enjoyable, but its no different with filmmaking. If you skirt around the universal definition of what you're trying to make, then people who go expecting cake, may get brownies. What if you go to make a cake and don't cook it enough, you get some sort of chocolate soup of nastiness. That's where the "artist" may go, lets take some crackers and make this a dip. YEY, that's very creative, but who is going to go through all that fuss, when all they want is cake in the first place? An art fanatic may, but regular people won't. They'll just throw it away and start over again, this time following the instructions perfectly to insure they get what they want. And there lies the issue... universally we expect cake when we go to make cake. Same goes for the cinema, we as the audience, expect to things and when they don't happen, we are disappointed. This leads to bad reviews, this leads to the market not "accepting" of your product and YOU not able to recoup your bottom dollar.

 

Again, you can make anything you want... cake can be brownies in your book, but there is absolutely a universal standard for producing visual content that is acceptable to the masses, whether people want to admit it or not.

 

How many documentaries would one have to make before one saw what the inate potential of the form was? And, if one had been making them forever, and still did not sense what the potential of the form was, then what are one's opinions worth. Without any self awareness, restraint or humility...pretty well (expletive) worthless.

Potential means nothing if nobody is going to see your finished product.

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Robin, I had a long-winded response to your unhelpful post, but I deleted it.

 

I'm a storyteller and filmmaker Robin, and that means I need to spread my abilities across many professions from writing, producing and directing, to camera/cinematography, editing, sound design and coloring. As intimate as you are with your one position as camera operator, I am with each of those. This is why I'm not shooting for Discovery, because I have no interest. I'm turning out finished product practically non-stop, for a variety of different entities on wide-ranging topics, in every comprehensible genre/style imaginable.

 

My advice is based on 25 years of being a filmmaker and learning what works and what doesn't.

 

 

 

Whats that proverb Im looking for.. master of....

 

Listen man.. its just getting a bit tiring..and a bit embarrassing .... I,ll leave it that that..

Edited by Robin R Probyn
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Whats that proverb Im looking for.. master of....

Yet another dis, you're on a roll.

 

I'll say this much, real masters are the most humble and open people. They understand the validity of other people's ideas and instead of mocking, they embrace and encourage.

 

Varied experiences outside a singular realm of expertise, opens your mind and pushes your abilities to much greater levels.

 

We live in a new and exciting world, where jacks of all trades are talking over from the more professional, single skilled, career-minded individuals. I'm very much happy to be on that boat and constantly challenging myself to new and interesting positions on varying shows.

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Yes thats sort of my point man .. humble as in.. self proclaimed expert on everything.. ?

I'm very humble in person in reality, not so humble when I'm attacked by someone who doesn't even know me.

 

What humors me the most is that you haven't given a single opinion on this matter, outside of ridiculed mine.

 

I will always be a better man then you sir, at least I try to help.

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I think I did.. rather than tell the OP out right that there was a very narrow formula for interviews..as you had.. and that I thought to be bad advise.. I suggested you didn't need 2 camera,s as you had stated as fact.. or to have constant movement .. nor that a static shot was boring.. or lazy or un cinematic ???? in fact my advice was that a static shot was better .. thats help.. not couched in a know it all way.. the fact that it differs from your dictates from on high..seems to be whats up setting you ..there was no personal attack or ridicule in my first post.. that was all in your reply to that post.. this will be my last post .. grow a thicker skin.

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this will be my last post .. grow a thicker skin.

I shouldn't need to do anything. You are the one who bullied me, not the other way around. This is not a child's playground and as an industry professional, it is wrong for you to bully my opinion.

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Tyler, enough! You've spewed the most vain delusional nonsense all over the forum, and now profess to be modest...! And Robyn, one of the few who stands up to you, is a bully..? What?

 

Can I say, how bizare it seems to me, that you are in any way educating others about film medium. I pity your students.

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Lets move on.. storm in a tea cup.. Im not bullying your opinion .. its just that they are so often written more as dictates from an "expert " rather than "advise" or even an opinion and certainly never in a humble way.. :) .. and well TBH they are often totally wrong.. and I feel I need to address that..

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Just a note that you can shoot interviews with just one camera and still have the wide shots, interviewer shots etc. You can also have the wide shot in focus, rather than the blade of grass or the paint on the door frame in the foreground, which currently the fashion in UK TV.

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I really dig the style of interviews in this...

Yep super nice doc, paid for by the big phone companies, so they can afford to give it away. They don't really need to make their money back like most filmmakers.

 

It's nice to see a lot of natural light and single light sources. Two camera shooting, one lens close off axis, one lens wider on axis. If you have a stopwatch, you will notice the B-Roll material had 3 - 5 second cuts, though they dwelled on the interviews a bit longer then I would have. Looking at the type of B-roll material they had and the simplicity of the story, I bet they just didn't have much to cut to. I think it would be hard for a youth audience to get into this piece and watch the entire thing, but I personally think the pacing was good all the way around, mostly because the mood is so somber.

 

It's a great example of a scripted, multi-cam documentary. "Scripted" because it was clearly researched very well and if you pay close attention to the interviews, they were done in a short period of time, as the sun/shadows never change. This is because the filmmakers walked in, knowing exactly what they needed to get. The b-roll choices also show a great understanding of the story. Everything was heavily pre-planned, from the police officers interviews at the scene of the accident, to acquiring the pictures of the accident itself. These show how well thought out the process was and again, a great example of scripted documentary.

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Yes a very good example of 100% static shots used in the interviews..in fact almost the whole film.. boring,uncinematic and uninteresting as they are.. personally I would have done without the the done to death side camera.. but it was de rigueur when this film was made.. and that at least 50% of the whole doc is actually the interviews them selves ..rather than 3 seconds.. because their stories are interesting in the first place and you can see it in their faces..

 

Or it could just be Herzog is a "lazy" filmmaker ..

Edited by Robin R Probyn
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