Codes and Conventions of Filming and Editing an interviews

• Interviewee positioned to left or right of frame
• If there is more than one it alternates
• Interviewees filmed in medium shot, medium close oor close up
• Questions are edited out
• Mise-en-scene - background reinforces the content of the interview or is relevant to the interviewee, providing more information about them in terms of occupation or personal environment
• Graphics are used to anchor who the person is on screen and their relevance to the topic of the documentary
• Interviewee looks at the interviewer not directly into the camera
• Positioning of the interviewer is therefore important. If the interviewer is on the RIGHT of the frame the interviewee is on the LEFT of the camera. the interviewer should sit or stand as close to the camera as possible
• Framing follows the rule of thirds - eyeline of interviewee is roughly a third of the way down the screen
• Interviews are never filmed with a light source behind the interviewee i.e. in front of a window or with the sun behind them. the light is always in front of them, behind the camera
• Cutaways are edited into interviews for two reasons:
• - to break up interviews and illustrate what they're talking about
• - to avoid jump cuts when the questions are edited out
• Interviewees are all sat down
• Cutaways are either :
• - archive material
• - suggested by something said in the interview and therefore filmed after the interview
• - sometimes aspects of the interviewee are filmed with another camera such as extreme close ups of eyes, mouth and hands, and used as cutaways

We watched 2 documentaries so we could list the codes and conventions that were present within the documenatary so that we could follow them to create our own documentary. The two examples of this are listed below:

In the Teeth of Jaws part 1

and

The Simpsons 20th anniversaryspecial in 3D on ice part 1