Hi Doug,

I enjoyed your video interview, and learning about the work of Dana Tai Soon Burgess. For a web video I was amazed at the high resolution of the image! What type of camera and editing software did you use?

From my experience producing some television of my own, I can give you a few pointers on shooting interviews. Take or leave them as you like, it's mostly stuff I learned through trial and error.

If I've only got one camera, I like to do a medium close-up of the subject so I get just their head and torso. I leave a little head room, but not too much. It's best to have the camera at eye level with the subject, if the lens is above or below it can give a feeling of unequal power with the subject (ie looking up to, or looking down on them). I usually set the camera up about 6-8 ft in front of the subject, and I sit just to the side of the camera, so they won't look directly into the lens but you still see a good shot of their face and expression. The ideal situation is to have someone else operate the camera and make sure it is framing the subject right and in focus. Then you can just sit back and talk. The other ideal thing is to mic the subject. A lavalier (clip-on mic) or shotgun mic works best. It's amazing what a good sound recording can do for the quality of an interview. I was told once that sound quality is much more noticeable and important than image quality to viewers. So even
though it can seem extravagant, if you can have a mic and mixer going in to your video, it will really boost it to a whole new level.

This was great for a first shot though, and I'm looking forward to more!

I also want to thank you again for your dedication to the field of dance. Your ideas and tireless advocacy are so needed and valuable!

best,
Anna

Hi Anna,

Much thanks for your kind words and suggestions!

I shot video with Panasonic DVD30 3-CCD semi-professional camcorder. I have a shotgun mic connected to my camcorder. I edited video with Pinnacle Studio Plus. I encoded video with AVS.

I'm going to switch soon to better video editing software either for PC or Mac platform.

I see what you're saying about the audio. The audio is clear when listening to the video. But there is a little background noise. For interviewing one person, I have a wireless lavaliere mic that I can use or I can simply attach a hand-held mic to my videocamera. For videotaping multiple people, I can continue using my shotgun mic at this point. Or, I can buy another lavaliere mic and a small mixing board.

The six-minute video file is 250 MB and I uploaded it to Blip.tv, which does not impose any limitations on file size. So I didn't have to compress the file that much - it makes a huge difference. I uploaded an AVI file encoded with DivX and then Blip.tv automatically generated a Flash file, which I embedded into this post.

I'm still experimenting with YouTube, which imposes a 100 MB limit on file size. I've seen some very high-quality videos on YouTube. So I know it's possible to optimize the encoding process for this video sharing site.

I like the way Dana communicates with his hands - I think it adds to the experience of watching him talk about his choreography and dance company. Are you suggesting more of a close-up shot?

The editing process is challenging. I'm beginning to watch a lot of video podcasts and other interview shows to figure out the best approaches to editing.

Thanks again, Anna, for sharing your thoughts. And I look forward to additional suggestions for others.

And, of course, thanks to Dana for participating in this first video program. It was a real treat to watch his company perform and I encourage readers to see his dance company if you get a chance.

Great interview.Anna's comments are right on. YouTube has broad viewer base but the quality of their videos is much worse than blip.tv. Not sure how your editing software works but if possible I would look at your data rate between 500 and 900 to get your file size down and look at the frequency of keyframes when you encode the video, more frequent=higher quality and larger file size. You can also do some b-roll before or after the interview having a casual convo and doing closeups of hands and gestures. This way you can get the gestures and keep the camera closer.

Wow, great interview! I think this is a really good service you're offering to the dance community; you asked good questions and I was interested in his answers -- particularly to how he constructs his pieces and what he wishes for an audience to take away from his work. I'm jealous of his touring schedule :) Good job!

Hi Boris,

Thanks for recommendations. I'll check the keyframes rate. I was experimenting with data rate - I think for the interview above it's in the thousands.

I also have to learn more about b-roll as you suggest. Can you elaborate on what you mean by shooting close-ups and gestures before and after conversation? - thanks.

Thanks, Tonya!

It's challenging asking good questions. I need to see a few hundred more performances and read lots of bios about dancers/choreographers.

I was thinking of asking dance writers/critics and others what their top 100 dances of the 20th (and 21st) century would be - the ones they thought that dance literate people should have seen and be knowledgeable about in order to have a good dance background.

Then, I'd like to figure out how many of these top 100 have video recordings - even if you have to go to a dance archive at library or directly to the dance company to watch performance.

Or, maybe somebody has already created this list.

Hi Doug,

Just to help clarify one of Boris' suggestions, which is a good one, B-roll is another segment of video footage (say of a dance sequence that the subject is describing) that you can cut away to. So, for example, while Dana is talking about his choreographic influences, you could cut to clips from his dances that are good examples of what he is describing, meanwhile we still hear him talking, or you could fade out his voice for a few seconds and we can hear the performance audio, then you can cut back to Dana talking.

If you do cut aways like this, it would enable you to change your camera position on the subject (say to take some close-ups) with out having to show the transitional movement you're making with the camera.

An issue that may come up with B-roll is getting permission from your subject to show footage of their work, and if you also play the sound then you need permission to have the audio be posted on the web (which most people ignore for non-commercial purposes, but if you're kosher than it's a consideration to take).

I also liked seeing Dana's hand gestures. I think if you keep the camera at eye level and have the subject looking just past the camera to the left or right then the shot will look more natural to the viewer and you can keep it zoomed out like that to get their gestures in.

Thanks for the tips about how you got high quality video resolution on the web. I would really like to get some of my footage up online soon!

best,
Anna

See this site for a listing of America's top 100 dances:

http://www.danceheritage.org/publications/dance_treasures.html

Anna, thanks for b-roll tips.

I have to do research about use of short clips with music to see what flexibility I have. I'm conducting these video interviews from independent news organization perspective. So I probably have some automatic rights to use, say, up to 30 seconds without needing any permissions - but I'm not sure and I have to check.

I'll have many more details about encoding video in different formats for different video sharing sites.

Hi DC Dance Watcher,

The list of 100 dancers you linked to on Dance Heritage site is a good place to start.