In December an organization called TIGP (Toronto Inter-Generational Partnership) visited our video class in my high school. They wanted to create a Youtube video about their program and weren’t sure how to do it. They asked us, since we were next door in the same building. They wanted the video to promote Intergenerational Day, on June 1st by explaining the importance of connecting with someone else of another generation, whether they are younger or older. My classmate and I were more then happy to do project.
Day 1: TIGP lined up 16 people for us to interview in one day. With the limited amount of time we had, we had to make sure we weren’t taking too long with one person. We had roughly 4 hours to film. Luckily most interviews were only around 10 minutes. That gave us time to move to a different background so that it wasn’t the same background every time. We shot the interviews with 2 cameras: a Nikon D3300 and a Nikon D5100. The D5100 had an 18-70 f3.5-4.5G, and the D3300 had a 35mm f1.8G. We had the D5100 record some close ups, and the D3300 shot wider shots. Surprisingly the D5100 didn’t have manual video settings, even when we set everything to manual; the camera would always readjust the iso by itself. This resulted in much grainier video compared to the D3300 which allowed for manual video settings. We didn’t have any lights as the order our teacher put in for some portable lights hadn’t come in yet. So, we were left with whatever lights they had at the recreation centre. To capture audio, we had a H4N audio recorder on top of a mini-tripod, and got it as close as possible to the subject without it being in the frame. We also had the Nikon me-1 mounted on the D5100, to record audio for backup, in case anything happened to the audio recorder.
One of the interviews we filmed on Day 1
Day 2: This time we were a little more prepared. We brought along a daylight balanced light. We also brought a better shotgun microphone. We had the Sennheiser mke 400; this was a much more reliable shotgun microphone with higher quality sound. For one interview we had to go to their apartment where there was much less space and room for us to set up. This time, we used the D3300 with the 35mm as a close up and the D5100 18mm-70mm as a wide shot, shooting at around 18mm.
Day 3: During this last day it was relatively the same process. We were more comfortable with the equipment, and each other, resulting in a more efficient workflow.