Production Log: Cinematography Prep

Cinematography Prep: Go to the interview site a day or two before your scheduled shoot in order to do some scouting. Write an entry considering the following: the setting and precise framing of the shot; the establishing shots; potential cut-away and cut-in shots. Why are you doing the interview there and how are you setting up the shot? What is revealed about the interviewee by the choice of setting and framing? How will the establishing shots, CASs, and CISs provide context for the interview and tie it into the rest of the documentary? Finally, how can you link your interview visually to the rest of the documentary? Do you refer to any of our collective visual motifs? Is there another motif that we should bring into the whole documentary?

For my interview(s), the camera will be adjusted to somewhere between mid-shot and medium close up. The interviewee's head will be placed at about the upper left or upper right corner of the central box of nine so that they aren't looking directly at the camera, as that can be rather uncomfortable. Rather, they will be looking at me as I ask them questions. I would like to interview my guest outside, perhaps at the pickup point by Gates but not during a time when that spot is particularlly busy. I could make cutaways to students walking around and saying hi to the cameraperson. I could make cutins to gestures that the interviewee makes.

I am doing the interview by Gates pickup because the outside has better lighting than the inside and because it is close to where my interviewee(s) hang out so that the audience gets an idea of where this person spends their time. But it is far away enough for the interviewee to not be distracted by friends. The pickup is a pretty generic spot; I chose it because the Loft people are a mix, they aren't all studious or all laid-back.

My first establishing shot will have students walking around as a transition to show that we're moving on to a new group of people to interview. Later I hope to put in a slide of some sort that says "The Loft" on it. The next shots will view the Loft people saying hi, like at the end of the KHON2 news broadcast. Maybe I could put in a view of them looking and waving at me from upstairs while I reside on the first floor.

I hope to use the establishing shots to show what the Loft people do and who they are. How are they the same as everyone else? How are they different? The cutaways and cutins are mostly there to better explain what the interviewee is trying to say.

I hope to link my interview with the rest of the documentary with the motif of students walking around and that action-going to Punahou-links us all together, whether we are similar to each other, or different.