Nicholas White comes into talk/Some of us phone interview Mark Fox Nicholas White comes into visit

Friday 24th oct and in the friday afternoon session some of us had to interview Mark Fox (others had to interview a producer/director whos name i never learnt) who has edited numerous TV productions like 'Big Cat Diary' and 'Jungle' and also done work for the BBC. Before my interview with Mark i had time to watch a bit of his showreel previewing some of the work he has done. He started out as a sound editor or dubbing editor and moved onto film at a later date. Anyway here is the recorded phone interview that i have tidied up a bit.



Also Nicholas White, a producer/director back from a jaunt with Bear Grylls on his latest travel lodge assisted 'adventure' (although Nicholas did say he was roughing it this time around), came in after everyone had conducted their phone interviews for an informal chat. I must admit and he did say this himself that Nicholas went round and round in circles with some questions, never really answering what you had asked and flirting with the subject, going off on tangents and then returning to a previous comment before setting his feet down with a vague reference to the question in point. However what he did say was very relevant if this is the kind of thing you were hoping to go into. He made a big thing out of the fact that someone in his role needs to have good social skills and also know how to get the best out of people. He came across as the kind of director who gives his crew their say in how things should be going, the kind of amiable chap who would say to the cameraman "Bill, I need this kind of shot, with the light coming from this angle lighting up the bottom half of the face" and the cameraman can get on and do what he is being paid for. I.e. not the dictator type.
With me, hoping to go on to become a cameraman, editor, sound tech or something along those lines, this gave me an idea of what kind of qualities to look for in a director i wouldn't mind working with.

some vids i like

Here are some vids on you tube that I like...

1. Scott Bourne's part from "Strongest of the Strange"

great skater in a well thought out part for a skate vid.

2. Clerks Clip - Jedi Politics:

from the film 'Clerks'.

3. BEASTIE BOYS Sabotage by Spike Jonze 1994:

great vid, great idea

4. The Pharcyde - Drop:

well i am a big admirer of Spike Jonzes work

Poetry Radio Package

Today we came into class and were given some previously recorded audio to edit into a 3 minute radio package within 3 hours. As the total time of the files came to nearly 30 minutes this may have seemed a fairly daunting task, but I seemed to have no problems with the editing or even with soundtrack pro, unlike some other students who seemed to be having a nightmare with the program. The audio included an interview with Annie McGann and the poem 'Howl' by Ginsberg.

Here is my package, hope you enjoy

The Cojack Interview

On a Thursday not long ago we were asked to interview two members of the BSU band Cojack. We were asked to prepare questions to pose to them in the hope they would make good interviewees and not just answer with a yes or a no. These questions came in many forms, some like "where are you from originally?" through to "what’s your favourite pie?”. The pie question went on to become the question to cause one member to think long and hard about the answer, which if you can hear if you listen to the interview edit.

Ciaren, Matt and I managed to get both members (Rob and Matt) of the band for our interview which I think was a real bonus to our interview as it seemed to make them more relaxed and chatty. This was also a downfall as our interview ran to about eighteen minutes in end which led to a lot of editing on our behalf. With my edit I cut out a lot of the later questions, trying to focus more on a theme of 'This is Cojack'. I went more for questions that gave them a chance to explain how the band formed and also went on to help them promote upcoming gigs, before ending the questions with the infamous 'pie' question. When adding the music I decided to use the shortest of the three tracks as the intro and background music, as this was about 2 minutes long I decided to use the longest track as the second part of the background. This could help to give people an idea of what other songs sound like as they also introduce a song at the end of the interview.

In this I could have gone about it differently, taken later questions where they had relaxed more giving a more chatty feeling, but I feel it was quite chatty anyway. I could have had them introduce the song and at intervals have them answering a few questions about the band and have finished with their next gig dates.

Andy Netly - Editor

During the afternoon Firday 10^th Oct Andy Netly came into our lecture for us to ask him some questions. Beforehand we watched an episode of the ‘Amazon’ from BBC2 that he had worked on. When he came in we asked him various questions about editing, some to do with the technical side and later more in the way of how to make your way to becoming an editor. He mentioned about how an editor needs to have a good musical knowledge and/ or library and an appreciation of how to tell a story instead of just following a script. He mentioned about how with the episode of ‘Amazon’ that he had worked on he had been given very little footage to use due to technicalities in the field with illness. This seemed to have left him with less creative play than if he had been given more. He also mentioned that since the move to digital it has become easier to do the job but a lot more time intensive as people will normally bring many times more footage to be edited than is actually needed.

First Post

Welcome.

This is my first post on this blog.

Been a while since ive blogged, my punctuation may not be up to scratch upon here but whos to care at the moment as we havent even been through this at uni yet.
Mike if your reading this hope you like it for the moment. Let me know if you want more punctuation on here.
Anyway, sat here after editing the Cojack interview which should be available on Mikes page in the coming hours.
Anyway enjoy the coming nonsense that may pop up on here too.