Production Log: Cinematography Preparation

Production Log, Part Four: Cinematography Preparation

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?

The filming will go as follows:

Establishing shot of the band room, pan to the marching field where we practice, pan back to the band room.

Student Interviews: Inside the band room. If it is too noisy for good-quality sound for the interview, there will be another establishing shot of the band room and the people practicing in it. The interview will then be conducted within either of the sound-proofed practice rooms (the Tuba Room and the Percussion Room) or outside on the patio. However, the interview will take place in the main band room if at all possible. When I am interviewing only one person, I will use medium close-up framing. If I am interviewing two people, or a person holding their instrument, I will use mid-shot framing or wide-shot framing, depending on the size of the instrument. The setting of the band room serves several purposes: it is convenient for those being interviewed, it shows non-band students what the band room looks like, and it sets the proper atmosphere for a series of interviews about band.

Interview with the Director and Drum Major(s) : Inside the Band Directors’ sound-proof office. There will be an establishing shot of the entire office before the interview. I will use mid-shot framing to include both people and a bit of the office. The office will be used for the interview because it is convenient for the interviewees, it is soundproof, and it shows the Directors’ working place.

Cut-in shots:
I’m not sure that I will be using cut-in shots. It seems a bit odd to suddenly move from an interviewee’s face to their hands with no explanation, and such a tactic may throw them off-guard or prompt them to ask what we are doing, which would interrupt the flow of the interview. Also, I don’t see that cut-in shots will add much to these interviews. As I stated above, students holding instruments will have mid-shot or possibly even wide-shot framing (depending on the instrument’s size), to allow the audience to see the instrument, how it is held, how its owner treats it, and so on. Cut-in shots don’t really seem necessary.

Cut-away shots:
Unlike cut-in shots, I think that cut-away shots could add great value to the interviews. Instead of simply watching people talk, we could insert footage of the band’s morning practices, or a halftime performance. I would especially like to get a shot of the Dancer cadence (also known as the ‘jumping-up-and-down-song’) at a football game, because it really shows the effect the band has on the crowd, along with the allowing the opportunity for a close up of the band ‘in action.’ Another possibility for cut-aways would be to include shots of the interviewees practicing their respective instruments. These shots could be inserted into each respective interviewee’s allotted time, so that as we heard a person talking, we also saw them practicing their instrument. Another nice cut-away would be to simply set up the camera in a corner of the band room and just show people socializing, practicing, coming in and out, and so on. This would show the normal after-school atmosphere of the band room, which—while nothing new to band students—could be interesting (or disappointing, depending on previous expectations) to non-band people.

Linking it to the rest of the documentary:
I plan to obtain footage of the band’s performances at football games. A possible way to link the band section to the rest of the documentary would be to move the focus of both the camera and the documentary from the band’s performance at games to the football team itself, or to the cheerleaders or fans.