Week 5: Doing the do

This week we had the opportunity to put our practical documentary skills to the test, by filming the amazing Lolita Emmanuel. Humbo brought all the gear we had played with the other week and left us to our devices to set up, direct and film everything. In the 3pm class, there were only about 8 of us and I think it made the process much saner, personally. We were able to all spread out and have something to keep us busy. David ended up being our director for the day but I ended up making some suggestions for delegating to tasks to people as we went because the responsibility was sprung on him the day of (he said to me later he wished he’d had time to write out a plan for directing, he’s that sort of dude). We set up two cameras, and two lights. We used a set of pencil mics under the piano’s hood, spread to capture the full range of the piano, and put them through the Zoom, which was also our backup audio. Even with such a small class Kelly and I still ended up having nothing to look after during the recording itself so we went outside to plan the interview questions for Lolita and Humbo.

For the interview we ended up not using the lapel mics like Humbo suggested, I think just to keep the enthusiasm going. We used the zoom instead, and two angles of video. The thing I found particularly good was having Lolita seated next to the piano so she could actually play snippets of the things she was talking about, which would be useful for people who may already have forgotten what the part she is talking about sounds like. It was also just nice to capture the “partners in crime” attitude the two had on camera - I think it’s quite a cozy vibe that demonstrates the excitement for both parties, working with each other.

As I've already done Comp in Music Ed I won't need to use these resources, but it was good to get to do the process anyway.