The thought of going �job shadowing� sounds so damn retarded, I know it does, and my interest in doing any kind of interviewing was a bare minimum, alright? Once I heard about this project, I wasn�t worried about it, because I wasn�t caring about it and therefore, not looking forward to any such nonsense. �Wolf Creek� productions was my destination, and I obviously had no idea what it was gonna be about. Have you heard of Wolf Creek productions? They mostly have done documentary-type shows.
However, once I arrived at the place, which was like an apartment, I basically just let myself in calling �Hello?� The first thing I saw was an open bathroom and thought the place was gonna be a shitty toilet.
Rusty answered, who was my contact person, and she was kinda just being picked on by the other guys who worked there. As I walked into the place, I saw leather couches in front of a large screen TV, and this was just a living room. Upstairs, where I met Rusty, there were two workstations where anybody could answer phone calls and I imagined how she was sitting while I called a couple days ago to set all of this up.
She introduced me to the guys who came in, and they were walking in to work at the same time I was. Steve was the founder of Wolf Creek productions, and he kinda walked me around to begin with, and he was the lucky guy who I had to interview. He used to be a reporter for our local Channel 10 news, and I did recognize him, especially his voice, but for some reason I just couldn�t picture him doing the news. Correction: I don�t recognize him, but his voice is definitely something I have heard before.
He brought me into a room with two computers all beefed up with little memory boxes on a rolling cart that had a bunch of wires coming out of it. There was also a big TV in the room connected to the computers, and they showed me one of their videos after I talked with him about his job and experience and schooling. It was mostly the LCC class he took on radio broadcasting and his job as a reporter that taught him what he �could do with his voice.� While sitting in front of me he looked up to the ceiling and thanked God for his voice. �I appreciate it,� he said.
All the while, there were other men walking in and out, and Steve told me about how they pretty much just walk in and out of there whenever they want or need to. The interview questions I was assigned to ask he might have enjoyed answering, but I asked other questions, like interview tips. This branched off the assigned question about listening skills. It is very important to listen during an interview, which there are some who don�t, such as Katie Curik (spelling?), who he dissed out because she doesn�t listen to the damn answers.
Now, there�s a lot of things you can look for during an interview�as you�re watching someone else�s interview. When asking questions, and the interviewer doesn�t listen, you can hear the interviewee say �Well, as I just said� quite a bit�that�s when you know that the interviewer isn�t doing a good job. Steve said that a lot of the time the interviewer is thinking about asking questions more than thinking of what the person is saying. Steve gave props to the late Johnny Carson as being one of the greatest interviewers of all time.
Steve showed me their band room, when, in their free time, they make music, and then handed me off to Craig.
When I was talking to Craig, I wasn�t myself. Myself, being, a quiet guy who likes to watch from behind as people are doing the activity. I wasn�t just watching though, I was totally and completely interested in everything they were saying, and I listened, and as I was listening to Craig respond to the thousands of questions I had, he said �As I said before�� and my heart skipped. Was I not listening? Yes, I was, but it is true that some people go back to their previous statements as a guide somehow. Sometimes people do that, but you don�t have to worry.
Now, a couple of my questions were about writing. They write all of their own stuff. In fact, they direct it, obviously edit it with all of their editing rooms in at least three different parts of this apartment-like production studio. When I say studio, I mean the editing rooms. They don�t film stuff at the house. And being a production company, they produce all of this. So they gotta have money. Steve was talking about how much all of the stuff cost. �A shitload.�
Craig was a much quieter guy, mostly working in the editing rooms. He showed me a video of stuff he shot, which was supposed to be a caribou hunt and ended up being an interesting story about the guy who was talking. It was basically shot like a reality TV show, and had a lot of different camera angles, and the whole thing was shot with one camera. He gave me a lot of camera-shot tips, including the rule of thirds, which I was unaware of. You don�t want the center of your shot to be the focus point.
He also gave me a lot of editing tips, such as how editing is how you tell the story. The shots of people talking, sitting down in an interview-style position, just like what you see with many reality TV shows, was shot at the end of their trip. That was also the main audio, too, where the guy sits down and talks about his life and tells stories and tells about their trip�and whatnot.
The last shot was filmed for 45 minutes, and that interview was what the narrative we hear behind the shots throughout the whole show. That�s where the key story telling elements come into play, with the editing. Now it�s important to know what you�re gonna be editing like while you�re out shooting, at least have an idea of what you�re editing. And it�s important to get details�meaning close ups. Craig told me a lot about the camera angles during a skit with two people talking. Like, your actors shouldn�t do the take only once.
Clint Eastwood shoots many of his movies in one take�or many of his scenes, rather, in one take. But he must have many cameras on the actors to switch it up a little throughout the scene. With one camera, actors gotta act more than once. Get details, too, like hand gestures, or eye brow lifts. Important details, not some silly shit.
Craig was a really cool guy, and was really funny. He reminded me of the guy from �Office Space,� the main guy, except he really didn�t hate his job. Shooting documentaries is his life. That�s what he�s there for and he loves it. He�s the one mostly handling the camera and then editing all of his stuff. I sat there watching him, and whenever someone entered the room he very enthusiastically yelled out there name, saying �HI!� On the phone, when he needed to get one of the other guys up there in the room, he�d end his little message with a loud smack of the lips as if sending them a kiss. He was a funny guy, but quiet, and he loved what he was doing.
Speaking of which, all of those guys could do whatever they wanted. Wouldn�t you love that? With their own production company, they are self employed. They can say �Hey, lets make a cool documentary on�ice fishing�� and they can travel to Alaska and film some shit, a lot of shit, come home, edit it, and turn it into something really cool. �Something really cool,� being�anything�they�want. They have all the freedom they could ask for.
They have the life.
The first video Steve showed me, in the room with two large computers and a big screen TV, and the roller cart with the memory boxes with all the wires�the video he showed me was really cool. It wasn�t a boring documentary on wildlife �n shit, it was comically funny. It had rock music playing in the background, and Steve delivered quite the hilarious voice over to narrate the piece. The video was about hunting, yes�but my mind and eyes were focused on each shot. When you watch a movie, you don�t notice this stuff as much because you�re just thinking about what�s happening. This video, I was watching how the editing was quick, the shots were close ups of guns and stuff.
The little video that they created was an action movie. About�hunting! And it was funny, like, the narrator, Steve, would agree with whatever the person on camera was saying �Yesiree, Bob, that�s right, now lets see�� who knows, it was funny. He has a funny voice. I mean, talking to me, he wasn�t acting or whatever, he was being himself and was totally different than what I saw on camera.
And each one of the guys who worked there had their own personality, and they were really cool. They all had their own sense of humor, and they weren�t living like my friends and I do, sure, they acted the same that we do, but pretty much everything they said was really funny. I couldn�t imagine them laughing at any of the shit Video Production plays on Williamston Weekly. They have seen it all. When I first got there, there was some guy who sounded exactly like Alec�s dad (Alec from my school), and he brought in Dunkin Donuts, drank coffee, just enjoying his morning rituals of waking up and coming to the perfect atmosphere of what outsiders would call �work� or �the office.� They were all sarcastic and insulting towards each other and perfectly comfortable with each other. They looked like a bunch of room mates just living.
When the guy who reminded me too much of Alec�s dad got there, he acted out taking a hit of heroin and smoking weed, talking in a high voice after deeply inhaling some air. There was another guy who wore a baseball cap the whole time who searched his pockets for something to give to Steve, and then �Wup, there she is,� and pulled out his middle finger. Craig, the guy who showed me SO much on the editing program, called �Avid,� was being made fun of the whole time because of what he was wearing. �Lookey here, we got ourselves our own Jimmy Buffett,� they would say and walk off singing some Buffett. They have their own band, that I am sure is just for their own amusement. Steve is on the drums, though. When I asked him what he wished he had learned in school, he replied �To play the piano, I wish I learned that.�
Upstairs, of course, there were another couple of computers with three mini-TV�s next to each other, and a big TV on top of the mini-DV VCR. This was where Craig told me all about editing and story telling.
After I had talked to Steve, I found out about a field trip, and I was all ready to go film something, but I had no idea what they would be filming since most of their documentaries take place in other states�we ran across the road while the guy in back was talking to his fellow editors �Boy this has gotta be a record, we�ve gotten across 9 times without getting hit� by any of the cars that were driving by. The road was just like Grand River going through Williamston, for those of you who are from Williamston, 25 mile per hour cars driving through a town that could be a Western town from so long ago.
We walked into the gas station and Steve so nicely offered to buy me whatever I wanted while someone came up behind me saying �Go for the beer.� I laughed. He walked up behind Steve �Chris wants a beer.�
They were the nicest people, and way cooler than I expected. We see all of these silly fishing shows on stupid channels such as WKAR or whatever and they so bloody boring, and from the footage they show, we don�t want to imagine how freakin� annoying it would be to edit all of that. I mean, the footage they shot, as Craig calls �raw footage� would be just a couple of hours of fishing, and that was a show. No, that�s not how you do it. Take it from Wolf Creek productions, who have rock music in the background, entertaining story telling, superb voice over acting, and hilarious subliminal messages during their comical advertisements that they also create.
Craig talked to me about the HD camera they have in Australia with someone, which I think he said was broken. High Definition cameras are really expensive...and really cool. I would know, "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" was shot with HD, as was..."Sin City."
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