One of my first projects for the College of Communication, Information, and Media (@bsuccim) was to create a 90-second feature on Ball Bearings, a student-run news magazine that was garnering attention and winning awards. Simple enough, but I was being sent into the project with no direction and no support. Just a time limit.
I decided to set up interviews with everyone I possibly could, particularly the Executive Staff and see if a direction would develop. The interviews went fairly smoothly and I was even invited to the Executive Staff's end of the year planning meeting/pizza party for more filming. There, I met the organization's faculty advisor and set up an interview with him. I also came into the Unified Media Lab several times and filmed them all working, talking, and interacting and thought I had everything pretty well covered when I went to begin editing.
Not quite.
Working for the CCIM means I get to be very independent, control my schedule, and choose my assignments, but that comes at a price. I'm alone on all of my shoots. I have no sound recordist, no gaffer, and no reporter. I'm a one-man-band of documentary production. Unfortunately, that meant I trusted the auto-attenuation on my camera to handle mic levels and I used a shotgun mounted on top of the camera since I didn't have time to set up the camera AND set up lighting AND lav my interviewees.
Students are busy and most couldn't give me more than 30 minutes for an interview, so the sound department is where I made up time. The UML is home to a dozen student media organizations, culminating at times into a noisy newsroom where everyone is shouting to be heard over the other teams. There were a few times I had to stand up on a chair and shout over the crowd that I was shooting an interview and needed everyone to quiet down.
What I didn't account for was the glass wall behind my interviewees. Every bit of noise in that room bounced right off the floor-to-ceiling windows and into my directional mic, muddling the sound that was already distant because of the mic placement.
Fortunately, I've learned my lesson and it hasn't been an issue since then. Unfortunately, the CCIM's media still functions as a network of freelancers, rather than an actual team and most of the projects offered to videographers are to shoot an event and make a 30-second highlight for Facebook and Instagram. Hopefully more features and/or documentaries will come along and give us the opportunity to collaborate and create.
