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12.31.2006

Assignment 17: Talk to the Camera

Purpose: To learn how to make people look good.

Basis: You will often find yourself shooting an interview. Even if you never work on a documentary or behind-the-scenes crew, you’ll still have to get shots of actors talking together from time to time. And there’s no time like the present to practice making people look good in the space you’ve got.

Directions: Get a friend or relative to agree to an interview. Find a nice looking setting in the house or outside and see if you can get a couple good looking angles. You will need both a mid-shot (from middle of the chest to the top of the head) as well as a close-up (face and little neck). Get them to chat with you for at least ten minutes about something they find interesting after setting up everything.

Looking Forward: We’ll see what you can cut together from your footage next.

What to Watch: "Into the Blur - Focusing for Effect" from the good people at DJTV Nothing like a couple quick tips on getting an interview shot to look dramatically better. Also, check out “Take 5: Awesome Interviews

Watch Samples:


Even more Assignment 17 Samples and Student Examples

4 comments :

Anonymous said...

Hey Luke ,
I have uploaded my Assignment 17.
I am not sure if i can put it into a Documentary. Should I do the Interview again? :)

Luke Holzmann said...

Your interview looks great! I think you have a ton of opportunity to cut it down to the best moments and make it really compelling. For example -- and this is just a tiny one -- you've got the part where you ask "What is the purpose of church?" There's quiet a while before he gets to answering that, but you could totally cut in when he says, "The purpose of the church is to bring people into closeness with the Living God." Boom. You will need to more shots to help cover your edits -- such as of church buildings, or sermons, or worship, or whatever -- but you've got great content to work with.

Hope that helps!

~Luke

Unknown said...

Karianne's assignment 17 is uploaded to youtube. http://youtu.be/kqXxDwqLhgw

Unknown said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqXxDwqLhgw This might work better for Karianne's assignment 17