Interview with George Osborne

pchidell

pchidell

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I was 'lucky' enough to be able to interview the Chancellor of the Exchequer on Friday afternoon with a friend of mine, for a documentary on Cheshire. It was the first real interview I'd ever shot (so quite a lot of pressure :gag:). I'll just warn you that the questions aren't very challenging, as we were under strict orders not to ask about national issues.

Just some notes about the set-up. I used a homemade track dolly for the wide angle, and there was very little natural light, so I kind of improvised with a combination of cheap LED lights. I think I should have illuminated his hair more, so that he stood out from the background better... The microphone situation was dreadful - literally just one Zoom H4N (as can be seen on the table). So there's a noticeable difference in background noise between when Osborne and Oscar (the interviewer) are speaking. I'm going to have to invest in some lapel mics, I think.

Please limit any comments about him personally (as tempting as they might be :D), but I'd really appreciate some feedback on the filming and lighting side, as my friend and I have quite a few more interviews lined up for our new political channel.

Anyway, enough rambling:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zvCnPk-uLs
 
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Also, if you have any comments on the little intro I made, please let me have them too! :thumbs:
 
Being from Cheshire - I'll watch this in the morning.

The reason I'm not watching it in full just now is that my PC is having a 'senior moment' and I have no sound till I restart it.

Strangely - for the purpose of your post - watching without the benefit of sound does enable you evaluate the work from a visual point of view.
 
Thanks for both of your comments so far! :thumbs:

Yeah, we were very lucky! We had him for 15 minutes (+ time chatting afterwards, about stuff not yet in the public knowledge :naughty:). So it was pretty incredible. And we're just students.
 
A little more backlighting would separate him from the background.

On the dollies, the room lighting is quite distracting.

Really nice piece though. Did he know the questions in advance?
 
Yeah, I agree with both of those points! I turned off all the lights in the further-back part of the room, but there was no natural lighting at all so I needed the closest ones to be on (as I only had three small lights of my own to play with).

No, he didn't know any of the questions in advance except the one about the role of Cheshire in the UK's economy. We had prepared a load of tricky national questions, but literally two minutes before the interview we were told that we couldn't use them. So Oscar had to do a lot of on-the-spot improvisation!
 
I've only watched the first minute and a half. I found the tracking shots very off putting beyond the introduction, also looking at the back of his head while he is talking isn't very interesting. White balance doesn't look quite right to me, looks a little warm.
 
Thanks very much for your comments. :thumbs:

I just wanted to create a bit of interest with the moving camera, but I see what you mean about the back-of-Osborne's-head issue. I tried to cut it so that the from-behind bits were mainly when Oscar was talking, but I agree it can be off-putting.

I did play around with the white balance in FCPX, but I decided that it looked artificial, as the lighting in the actual room was very warm. I did use yellowish lights, so I'll try to get some more neutral ones next time. Again, thanks for taking the time to look!
 
I thought it was a good effort. The sound from Osbourne's dialogue sounded spot on to me. As you've pointed out, a lapel or shotgun pointed towards you would have helped, but that's not to say that your questions weren't clearly audible.

I felt the same with the dolly shots (a bit distracting). I find this with dolly and job shots in general. The temptation is to overuse them.

Good job on the opening credit. I was wondering why the characters/number 10 digits looked slightly off (I couldn't put my finger on it), but now I know!
 
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Thanks for that!

Yeah, I think I'm just going to have to cut down on dollying in future. I've only just started to use my home-made one, so I'm probably going a bit over the top.

The 10 of Downing Street was the highest resolution, free-licensed photo I could find, so it's what I had to make do with. Next time I'm down in London, I might try and grab a better quality picture with a teleconverted 70-200mm.

This has all been very helpful, and I'll take the critique I've received on board for my future projects. Just in the process of securing an interview with Alistair Campbell for the next one! :)
 
You could be a handy man to know :-)

Off course I meant jib and not job shots in my post above!

If you are looking for a cost effective lapel mic that is useful for this type of interview, I recommend one or two of these:

http://www.studiospares.com/mics-other/audio-technica-atr3350/invt/447050

They come with a super long cable, so perfect for running back to the H4N, which will then allow you (or a sound tech to monitor the levels).
 
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I think the 2nd camera would have been better used for a different static shot. The moving wide shots lower the professionalism for me, seeing the tables and chairs in the background lowers the production level. (all imo)
 
Yep, buy a lapel mic.


I'd have had the dolly facing Gideon, not facing your interviewer, it understand that you only had 2 cams so needed the reverse angle. Keep the moving camera stuff to a minimum really - though for doc rather than news you can get away with it a lot more - but nice stuff overall.
 
Thanks for all the responses, and I will certainly be taking everything on board when we next do an interview. :thumbs:

Thanks also for the link, Marc - that looks like a worthwhile purchase. But I'm slightly confused as to this whole record-in-mono-and-convert-to-stereo thing which people seem to talk about a lot online? I'll need to do some more reading up on how best to use the H4N with the lapel mic(s)...
 
pchidell said:
Thanks for all the responses, and I will certainly be taking everything on board when we next do an interview. :thumbs:

Thanks also for the link, Marc - that looks like a worthwhile purchase. But I'm slightly confused as to this whole record-in-mono-and-convert-to-stereo thing which people seem to talk about a lot online? I'll need to do some more reading up on how best to use the H4N with the lapel mic(s)...
Click to expand...

Do you mean M-S sound? That means mid-side, a method of generating stereo from a cardioid mic and a ribbon mic at 90 degrees.
 
most of my comments have been mentioned already.

First thing that struck me was the light, it was very yellow. WB check would have been great.

As mentioned, the panning was ott and the wrong way around. Also at 3:24 it pans right, stops then left, felt very weird to watch.

The sound was ok from George but your mate was very muffled.

I am not sure about having "below desk" shots in there. George was sitting very oddly and shifted his legs a couple of times, I felt it was a little distracting.

The up close face shots I liked.

Granted, I only skipped through the video, politicians talking bores me to tears. However, tell your friend next time he's interviewing someone like this, wear a tie!
 
Thanks for all your responses - they'll all be taken on board in future. :thumbs:

I think (and hope) we've got Cameron on board for an interview, but it's yet to be confirmed. So that will be interesting, if it works out...
 
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