Anna and I had a great time learning more about the
interview process and experimenting what it feels like. We both think that this
trial run helped us learn what things we’ll need to work on or ask for help with before we get to meet Emily Martinez.
Scanning documents was a straightforward process and there
were hardly any complications. The scanner was easy to use and Anna’s archives
were easily uploaded.
The same can’t be said about recording the interviews. It
had to be done in two steps. When we originally met to record the interviews,
we thought it would take us an hour to be done. Little did we know that it
would take us that hour to get acquainted with the camera. We ended up having
to schedule to meet again to actually record.
The day of recording everything went a lot smoother. Setting
up the camera was fast and recording went well. Uploading the videos to our laptops took
longer than we expected and we discovered one of the reasons interviewing takes
so long: the videos take FOREVER to upload. We both anticipate that uploading
Emily Martinez’s video will allow for a lunch break.
Editing our trial run clips was another experience. I had
never used any editing software so Anna gave me an iMovie tutorial. I thought I
had it down until I wasn’t able to successfully cut down my clip. We will
definitely have to have more thorough tutorials to prepare for the future.
Elizabeth and I met up last Friday to work on our initial set up for the trial run Oral History. I was definitely thankful we did so because we had some technical difficulties with the volume, as well as the camera focus. After a bit of fiddling (and memory jogging from the session we attended in class), we finally figured it out. We did our final filming Sunday at Elizabeth's house to simulate the environment that we will most likely have with our interview subject. Although the lighting wasn't 100%, the overall outcome of the video sound and the picture were pretty clean. The one thing we both decided we needed to remember is to make sure to position the microphone at an angle where the least amount of rustling/movement will affect it.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to the actual oral history, I found that asking the questions themselves were much harder than actually answering them. We came up with a few generic questions after reading over the sheet sent out to the class (i.e. what was your background growing up, why did you choose to come to University of Michigan etc). As an Oral Historian, you want to give the respondent plenty of time to answer. When I found myself wanting to respond to Elizabeth's answers, I wasn't really sure how/what was appropriate. A few times I caught myself mumbling "that's so cool". As noted in Conducting Interviews, "A smile or a nod signals that you got the point and will encourage the interviewee to keep talking. Quiet signals are preferable to verbal interruptions, which sound foolish on the recording and clutter the transcript (106)." Those are things I definitely will need to refrain from doing and make sure I give myself a mental reminder before going into an interview.
The videoing itself went on without a hitch since this was our second attempt (the first time we met we went over camera functions and as previously mentioned had some struggles); the hardest part of the whole videoing process on the second day was the upload time. It amazed me how long it took to upload just 5 minutes of video to iMovie. We did simple clip editing after the upload.
This looks good ladies!
ReplyDeleteIs the photo of Anna? How cute!
Maria
Lighting looks terrific. When you are in the interview, give yourself a little more room on the top of your subject. Good rule of thumb. Hold three fingers together over the top of your subject's head. If you can see all three fingers then you have enough room on top of your subject's head. If you don't want to use three fingers, you can use a 3x5 index card held horizontal.
ReplyDelete