I was very excited about this project because I have wanted to work on a story dealing with dogs for quite some time. I found Ann Gafke last semester, but never used her as a subject. I felt her job was so interesting, especially since she is one who started up choreographing dogs to music in the drill team at her dog school. Although it was an exciting story to work on, there were also a lot of complications that went along with it.
Gathering audio for the interviews was quite a challenge this time around. When I conducted my first interview, I couldn't tell whether the wireless mic had worked (it was hard to judge even with the headphones in). I came home to find there was a faint background sound. When I set up for my second interview, the wireless mic that I had checked out did not work at all. I started out setting the mic as close to her as I could without having to hold it because I was worried my hands would brush it and make fuzzy sounds. When I didn't think it sounded good I immediately picked it up and held it right by her, which sounded much better. It was frustrating when editing because I had two different interviews with different types of background noise. There were some great quotes that I really wanted to use from the first interview, but couldn't because of how different it sounded from the other interview. It was definitely frustrating for me because I always use a wireless mic and have much success with it. This time the equipment just didn't work in my favor.
It was also hard to get ideal answers out of my subject. While she gave me great material, each answer took over a couple of minutes and wouldn't make much sense if I tried to edit it down. I attempted to ask certain questions multiple times hoping for a shorter answer, but wasn't too lucky. I edited as much as I could to make the story make sense, but it was quite a challenge. Overall I wish I would have had more luck with the audio equipment and had been able to gather shorter, quality answers for my interview.
I also had some trouble when it came to toning my images. The building that I shot in was completely white inside, which made it difficult when toning my photographs. I couldn't tell when things looked too white or too yellow because of the way the camera captured the lights. The final cut video also washed out some of my images, which I wasn't quite sure how to fix.
While I experienced difficulty in many things I did enjoy the variety of frames I captured. Along with using different lenses and getting low I also managed to climb onto a fridge that was in the building (with Ann's permission of course). It took me a lot of tries to master the video work, and although I'm not completely happy with the overall quality of the video, I really like the shots I took and am happy with how well the final shot went with the music.
I'm glad that I was able to create a multimedia piece out of this story with music and video included. I think the music captures the feeling of that specific environment. It also kept the story nice and light- hearted, which is the feeling it gives off in the first place.
Overall, I am happy with what I was able to produce. There were many challenges and even though I went so many times to overcome them I wasn't always successful (and there usually was a new problem). However, I learned to work with what I had and to make it the best it could be despite all of the factors that were frustrating me. I hope to attend one of their public performances soon so that I can add onto the multimedia piece and make it better in the future.
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