Questions:

Does the sequence of this interview make sense?

What do you think is the tone of the interview?

Should I add music?

Other thoughts or advice?

Editing this down to under 4 minutes was extremely frustrating. I took ~ 3 hours of footage and she just talked about so many things! My interest in the subject matter made me lead her in weird tangents though. And she really could talk — she never left much time in between sentences. That’s how I talk too, so we interrupted each other happily for 3 hours. When I got home to edit I realized how unhelpful that is. I think the overall choice to film her the entire time was positive though. It was a boar to wade through but I pulled some nice shots from it. Liz is one of the Lehigh Valley farmers that sells at the Muhlenberg Farmers Market so that’s how I met her. After I contacted her she recommended we go to Crooked Row, her farm off to the side of her parents’ larger farming operation. Her parents also own bison which is ridiculously cool. We fed them apples — definitely the most interesting thing I’ve done on a Sunday morning this semester. Liz’s friend was visiting so she brought him along and I tried to edit around him.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p292kulPnqTq-X9UEv8cA-sT5GOQHsr9/view?usp=sharing

I have no idea what happened to make this have very low pixels and only a small part of the screen, so if anyone has suggestions, SOS!

My original idea for my interview subject was Mike, the friendly custodian who works at Skillman library. However, when I approached him to ask if he would participate in the project, he was reluctant. He said that students have asked him throughout the years to do the same, and he has turned them down, so he would like to remain consistent. However, he did say that if I couldn’t find anyone else that he would do it. He clearly felt uncomfortable about the whole thing, so I thought it would be best to pursue another subject.

I’ve worked at the front desk of Skillman library since my freshman year, and a lot of students that work there are international, fulfilling their work study programs. I’ve met people from all over—Rwanda, Nepal, Madagascar—and most recently, I have a coworker from Colombia. He is a really interesting person, because he moved to America when he was younger, for about 10 years, then back to Colombia, then back to America for college. He is both international and domestic—he doesn’t fit one category. He is very involved on campus, an eloquent speaker, and just an all-around friendly person. I think that since I already had a relationship with him prior to asking him to be my interview subject, he was much more willing. I learned a lot about him that I didn’t necessarily know before the interview, which I made the experience really rewarding.

I think going forward, I need to obviously incorporate b-roll. I’m going to ask Daniel if he has any photos or videos from Colombia and maybe just some footage of him around campus doing various things. If anyone has suggestions for b-roll, I would really appreciate it. I also need to cut it down. I ended up with about 10 minutes of footage when I edited my questions out, and just had his answers, so cutting it down to even 5 minutes was difficult. I think the message I’m trying to get across is that Daniel has a double-life. He’s not just an international student or just a domestic student; he doesn’t fit either mold. I think what I cut it down to revolves more around that message, but I’m open to any other constructive criticism.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/188n5vU29aefvqJvaQe-h0zRqi17Epnr2/view?usp=sharing

The person that I chose to interview is a Junior here at Lafayette College. John Rodriguez is a double major student, studying English and art. He is a good friend of mine. Very talented guy. For my interview I wanted to capture an artistic process in its rawest form. John was the best person for that with his studio dreams that are developing further here at Lafayette. John has engineered songs for himself and serveral Lafayette artists. The reason I selected John is because he is a great speaker and easy to talk to.  I wanted my interview to have a very home – like vibe. In hopes of keeping John comfortable, and to give us a chance to see where the magic happens, we conducted the interview in his room. I felt like this is where he could be most honest and reflecting about his work while not feeling under pressure from the camera. We participated in many types of shots . The interview ended up being about a hour conversation in which I had a lot of film to work from. It was a good experience. I really learned a lot about John and myself as an interviewer.

When Kim Snyder came to show and talk to us about her film Newtown I was blown away. I loved how she opened up the movie by saying that this movie is the community’s story and not hers; she was just there to document this neighborhoods experience and listen to their experiences. I almost did not want to take any notes while watching the film because I wanted to experience every second of emotion. Watching the expressions on the faces of the grieving community were such raw moments that really made me think about how difficult it was for Newtown to get over Sandy Hook.

The interviews in Newtown were so powerful and chilling because of the natural feelings that the subjects showed. The interviewees did not even have to say every word of their sentences before they choked up for me to tell how much pain they were in. For people to really understand how horrible something is, they need to see visual evidence, and I think the pain on these people’s faces showed just that. Us as viewers did not need to see gruesome images from the event because we were just as impacted from the emotional interviews.

One of the smartest decisions the director made was by making the story about the victims and not about the shooter. There were some clips that referenced the shooter, like the security footage from inside his house, but not much information was given on him. I am not sure that his name was even given in the film, he was just referred to as “the shooter.” This reminded me of visiting the 9/11 Memorial two weeks ago and how the museum was set up to honor lives of the fallen. Inside the whole exhibit, there was only one room that talked about the terrorists who committed this horrible crime. The importance of this in both the 9/11 Memorial and in Newtown is that they both exist to honor those who are gone and for the families who have lost their loved ones. The people who are at fault for their crimes should not be addressed because these creations are about the good and not the evil.