The real interview

I am going to ask my questions in three sections. This enables me to move the camera around in the room to get different viewpoints, it will also give both the interviewee and myself a chance for a rest from the camera.

About the subject;

·         Can you describe yourself in three words?

·         Why those words?

·         Who is your biggest inspiration? Why?

·         What would your ideal job be? Why?

·         If there was one thing people could remember you for, what would it be?

About the subject’s heritage;

·         How old were you when you discovered you were adopted?

·         How did that make you feel?

·         Do you think being adopted affected your upbringing/the person you are today?

·         In what way?

·         How do you think your life would have been different if you weren’t adopted?

·         Did you have a close relationship with your adoptive parents?/Birth parents?

Traits/Traditions

·         Do you have any characteristics from your birth parents?

·         How does that make you feel? –are you glad you have a part of them?

·         Do you have any traits passed on from your adoptive parents? –Expand

·         Do you have any family traditions? – Expand

Evaluation of interview

Things that didn’t go to plan;

Once in the subject’s house I set up the camera for the interview in a corner of a small room, I decided not to move the camera around between the sets of questions as the room was too small and a different viewpoint would have included items within the room that I didn’t want to include. I would have been able to choose a different room so that I could move the camera around, however I decided that the small quiet room would give better sound quality and that was more important than viewpoint.

During the interview I also added some unplanned questions, after speaking to the subject some other issues/stories arose that she wanted to share/give her opinion of and I wanted them to be included in her oral history so added the questions on the end of the interview.

I asked the subject to briefly describe some of the items that she had set aside to show me as part of her history, I am thinking of putting these into the video with the explanation sounding behind it.

I am happy with the overall result of my interview. I felt prepared when I met with the subject, I tried to make her feel comfortable, I did this by explaining the interview well, I also let her look through the questions before filming to familiarise herself with them, I also asked if there were any questions she would prefer me not to ask. This gave the subject some confidence in me, it also meant she was openly discussing the agreed questions.

First attempts at making a documentary and oral history film

We were asked to go out and practice using the camera. First I devised some basic interview questions to ask my subject.


I used a Flip Ultra HD camera to record the interview. I have used one of these cameras before, they are very simple and easy to use. It has 4 main controls, on/off, playback, record, delete and a arrow keys pad.
We went to the park to film the interview to give an attractive background.



I started off well by setting up the camera in a quiet location where the subject could be heard, however when I got onto the 5th question the subject began to find it hard to keep a straight face, I stopped recording at this point as I found this funny too and didn't want to spoil the interview by laughing.

Once we had composed ourselves we started again, with where we had got up to in the interview, this meant when it came to putting the interview together I had to use software to connect the two pieces, I used imovie to jell them together. I dragged both pieces to the top box to create a new project and put them next to each other. 

It is clear where the interview jumps between both clips, this is firstly because there is a man walking in the background and secondly as when I began filming for the end of the interview, the interviewee had moved closer to the camera. 

Overall I am pleased with this project, it is an accurate record of history. I would like to either complete this interview again as one piece or become more competent with the editing software so to be able to add images to the video and also get rid of the jumping between the different parts of the interview. I could choose a different location where there is no pathway in the background, there is also a cone in the background which I didn't notice whilst filming but it is very distracting on the eye and I would like to remove it. The video would also be better if the location was quieter giving sole attention to the subject.

Research into documentary and oral history projects

Oral history


Oral history is the collection and study of historical information using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcripts of planned interviews. 


Documentary film


Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record. 






Examples of Documentary and Oral history projects 






I have chosen this video as a good example of an oral history project. There are many reasons why I think this is a good example, one is for it's professionalism. The camera is always steady with smooth transitions between scenes. I like the introduction of interviewee's with their name being displayed on screen.  There is a good balance between still imagery and video interview. The sound quality is good with all speech clearly audible. I like the