What Makes Someone Buy Something?

Right now, I really want the new Batman: Arkham Origins game. Nerd factor aside - I haven’t decided to buy it yet. I’ve just asked myself, ‘why not’? As marketing campaigns for video games go, the new instalment of the Arkham series has done pretty well - appealing partly to my nostalgic expectations and partly to my desire to see what the game actually consists of. Most video games in the triple A industry have all but given up on audiences, choosing to promote in the style of movie trailers - in that ever progressing attempt from both sides to cross over into each other’s territory - while offering no hint as to what the purchaser will actually receive for their money. Branding is the obvious excuse for this - why bother showing game-play for Grand Theft Auto when everyone knows what to expect? All you need to do is get a dust-buster on the synopsis of the previous instalment and it’s a brand new masterpiece of originality (and don’t let anyone point out how much money they spent making it because the Transformers movies were expensive too and you could simulate that experience by pacing in a jail cell made of Bop-It machines). Branding isn’t an excuse though because then we look at The Last Of Us 2 ERM I MEAN Beyond: Lost Souls which even boasts the cast members including Willem Dafoe and the girl from the first  Last Of Us ERM I MEAN Ellen Page.

So, what is it that makes us buy things? If you’re selling something it’s important to remember that you can never force someone to buy something, regardless of how much you push it.

 I've always been very interested in TV and poster advertisements. Living in Singapore for a while showed me how culture and environment effect advertising attitudes - Singapore would be mostly fear. A mosquito advert in Singapore features a 2-year-old girl with a teddy bear playing happily while a giant mosquito plunges down towards her ignorant face. The text reads "Your little girl. Her nightmare is about to begin. and for the family too." Bad grammar aside, it's advertising styles like this that use fear to the point of hilarity - but this isn't actually selling a product. In the UK the attempts at TV advertising suggest limited faith in the British population with slightly overweight. balding, hoody-wearing men representing the financially struggling, while beautiful, infinitely patient women in three-quarter-length trousers represent middle-class mothers. When making an ad it’s important to make people associate with real life. Most of our brain’s function is to deal with social situations and we process information better in these contexts - the same reason maths sums in exams are often set in a social contexts (swapping watermelons or marbles or prescription bottles etc).

 However it's the personal sales where the really subtle psychology comes into it, and here it's very important that people like you. We make most decisions based on emotions, not logic. You’re far more likely to keep someone interested if they like you, and if you can make them feel that buying from you would be doing you a favour as well as helping themselves, it can push a customer from on the fence to purchase decision. 

 Of course, before you get there you need to convince a customer that what you have is something they want. Remember here that people are always suspicious. The cynical nature of the world will mean you’ll need to gain their trust, but generally people want to be sold products so remember to be honest and fill them with confidence in the product (and therefore you). Don’t treat customers like you’re trying to ‘sell’ to them - if you treat them like you’re trying to ‘help’ them instead, the entire process can become mutually beneficial.

 Take some time to research for yourself and for some particularly well-informed reads, try Dean Rieck. So what has made me not buy the new Batman game? Opportunity cost, and the knowledge that if I would have to trade a few days of eating and/or life (thanks for that, economy). There’s nothing anyone else can do about that (besides feed me and give me money), but the game did what it was trying to do correctly - created desire to its target audience. I want.

How to Present Yourself Confidentially

We’re all a blank canvas of potential until we need to make an impression. There’s no middle ground in confidence - only extremes in the wrong direction. You’re either confident or not - push any further into either direction and you become arrogant or a recluse (or both; a compulsive YouTube commenter). But there are no/few commercially successful people who don’t give off a confident impression. No one wants to do business with someone who is unsure of themselves, and no one wants to listen to someone who can’t figure out if what they’re saying is right or not.

It’s not a secret that people make their first judgements of someone within the first few seconds. Conscious or not, the assumptions made about you early on will linger like school reputation at reunion day. Regardless of your experience, expertise or even knowledge - if you can’t convince your audience you’re not afraid of them (in a presentation or on camera) in the first few seconds, the next couple of minutes will be a case of clawing back confidence from the people who are hanging on your every word.

I’ve performed stand up comedy for a few years now in Asia and the UK, and I maintain that a first impression will always come sooner than you’re ready for it. From the point where you pick up the microphone, or even how you enter the stage, every element of your physique, your walk, your style, your facial expression - the list goes on - is analysed, broken down and reconstructed in the shape of how confident you appear to be to everyone watching what you’re doing. On stage it's a case of walking out like you're walking into your own room (minus the desire to fling your shoes off or sing into a hairbrush etc). Owning the stage, like everyone else is there because you let them. Personally I would try to seem cavalier about it - almost like I could take it or leave it - grabbing the microphone stand aggressively like I didn't care if it fell over. The last sentence, of course, doesn't quite apply in the corporate environment, but the philosophy is true to both scenarios. In all cases, owning the stage is essential. If you don’t believe you belong there, neither will anyone else.

There’s a lot of tell-tale signs when someone is unsure of themselves, and it’s because of how conscious you become of yourself. This is especially true when making a presentation where every movement you've ever taken for granted feels like it’s the most animated you’ve ever been, like lifting your finger will set off the bells in Notre Dame. The most common confusion comes from people’s arms - what are you supposed to do with them? Nothing’s weirder than someone talking at you for 20 minutes who keeps their hands straight and stuck to their sides like their having a nativity play flashback, and you can’t fold them or you’ll look like you’ve being told you aren’t allowed any more biscuits by your mother. Since you’re on stage, larger movements don’t look as big as they feel, so put emphasis into you words with your hands. That’s not to say cartwheels and cheerleading choreography will help you out, but follow Steve Jobs’ example - busying his hands (conveniently holding something, usually), and pacing where appropriate. Being aware of your space and using it can make you feel - along with the audience - that the stage is yours. Just try not to look at your feet as much as Jobs did; it’ll either make you look like you’ve forgotten what you’re saying or that you’ve put your shoes on the wrong feet. It’ll be very tempting to look at one space and focus on it; I would advise to constantly redirect your attention but to nobody in particular. A light in the room, someone’s bag, anything that won’t give you awkward eye-contact (unless the context calls for it) but will let everyone assume you’re just looking at somebody else.

On camera it’s the opposite problem - your movements are exaggerated to the nth degree and your eyes will usually say more about you than the rest of you put together. As bizarrely unnatural as it feels, focusing in one place wields a more confident look than wandering eyes. While in front of a live audience it looks more natural to redirect your attention regularly - so to share the presentation with everyone - on camera everything is exaggerated so movement or wandering eyes might give the look of a nervous person, or perhaps a person surrounded by bats. So relax and find a focal point in the studio that isn’t the sound guy’s curry stain and stick with it.

From this point, if you’ve come out confidently, the rest should come naturally. Assuming what you’ve got to say matters, and the information comes across coherently (all of this was for nowt if you can’t talk over the air-conditioning), then you’re ready to paint that blank canvas of potential and prejudice whatever colours you want.

CLIENTS -> Support your suppliers.

There's an idea that we can probably all relate to from a supplier perspective - but as we're all Clients of someone I'm sure we could manage to act on it a bit more than we currently do, 

"Do unto others as you would have others do unto you" and all that...

With that in mind here's a pitch from a Senior Account Manager at one of our equipment hire companies On Sight. It turns out Al Eales is a budding script monger and has made it to the long list of Enter The Pitch 2013. He's made a brave pitch film and is now at the mercy of a public vote so get your watch on and check out what he's up to here, go-on push the boat out and give him a vote if you like it:


Vote for “The Denial” at The Pitch #watchitnow

FLETCHERWILSON become preferred supplied to KPMG

We recently heard the exciting news that we're one of a handful of film production companies that have been awarded preferred supplier status by KPMG. We've been working with our friends at KPMG for a number of years now and have been lucky enough to be involved on a range of interesting projects for them.

In the business we're in we are in a position to clearly see both the image that a company would like to present of itself as well as seeing what goes on 'behind the scenes'. Luckily for us all the companies that we work for these days have consistency between the image they'd like to present to the public of who they are as a company vs who they 'really' are - how they operate internally, how they behave towards clients and suppliers. We think there is a general trend towards more integrity of external message / internal behaviour within companies these days and that it's driven in part by greater demand for disclosure, in part by social media and in part by the recession we've experienced culling many of the companies with less integrity.

Our job is easier when a company is who they say they are. It's easier because the nature of what we do involves scratching beneath the surface to tell the 'real story' of who a company is and what they do, and if what you find beneath the surface differs from the public facing image then we have to work hard to find the commonality between what's going on behind the scenes and the public facing image. It's important to us to present a company in a realistic light not only because we believe that 'the real story' of a company is the most effective way to promote that company and to engage potential customers, but also because we are not in the business of making films that tell 'the real story' of a company, when in fact it's not.

Which brings us back to KPMG and our application to become a preferred supplier. The process of getting onto the PSL for KPMG has taken us about 3 months and has involved the provision of detailed information about our company and our philosophy. We've supplied detailed reports into our policies on diversity, business continuity, environmental impact, sustainability, social responsibility, crisis management and others. It's been an interesting exercise in introspection, ensuring that we measure up to a range of criteria and that we can deliver on our promises. It's the first time that a client of ours has asked us about the initiatives we undertake by way of Corporate Social Responsibility, sustainability and diversity and what this shows us is that when KPMG talk outwardly in their communications about being serious about these things, they actually mean it. This has been our experience in all our dealings with KPMG - specifically that they walk it like they talk it - everything they say they do and stand for externally, we see evidence of internally. It's the hallmark of a progressive, responsible, modern company that we're very pleased to be working with.

OBLIVION - film review

I saw the film Oblivion yesterday. I wasn't expecting much and hadn't read anything about the film - either the plot or reviews of it but it's fair to say it's one of the best films I've seen in a long time and the best film I've seen this year.

Why is it great? - it's a great package - the plot, the direction, the cinematography, the visual realisation, the CGI and the scoring are all first class.

Let's get the tech out of the way first. If you're not a film geek you might want to skip forward.

Camera: This film was shot on a Sony F65 camera at 4K. This is the first major feature to be shot on an F65. The F65 shooting RAW footage at 4K is a bit data hungry and on some days they would shoot 10 terabytes! Technicolor supplied a truck with a theatre for watching dailies and data wrangling which apparently helped.

Lenses: for the exterior shots Claudio Miranda shot with Fuju Premier Zooms (zooms!) because he feels they are sharper(!) than the Arri / Zeiss Master Primes that they used for the interior shots. It's unusual to film with Fuji lenses which are more often used for sports than for cinematography, but also to use zoom lenses is very unusual.

Set: All of the interior shots feature very reflective surfaces. To avoid having to re-create the set in CGI in post and to create a more life like set for the actors, a live projection was created using 21 projectors showing a seamless 15K image. The 15K image was projected onto a 500 foot x 43 foot muslin screen wrapped around 270 degrees of the set to give the background. Because the background in this instance is the sky, the second unit went up a mountain in Hawaii for 2 weeks and shot every cloud formation they could find. The projectors were timed to the shutter of the camera and more stop was gained by riding the ISO. If they'd wanted to go up another stop beyond that which could be achieved by ISO gain it would have meant doubling the projectors to 42 - an expensive proposition given the set up they were already dealing with (21 projectors, 10 projectionists, supporting data wranglers, etc).

Lighting: This was almost all done with the projectors!

Here's a short film about the set and the process:

I knew nothing about the technical aspects of this film until after I'd seen it. The look of the picture prompted me to research it and sure enough they used a pretty unique set up to film it.

OK, onto the film..... the acting from Tom Cruise, Olga Kurylenko, and Andrea Riseborough is believable. Tom Cruise and Andrea Risebrough work well together and the many hanging close up shots of them leave opportunities to see holes in their performances but this doesn't happen. The performances are generally quite minimal and this is in keeping with the visual style of the piece and also ties in with the plot as a whole. The acting isn't what makes the movie though.

It's hard to talk about the plot without giving the game away, which would be a shame and which I won't do, suffice to say things aren't all they seem to be and the story is one which will make you think. What I can say is that Tom and Victoria's characters find themselves to be alone on earth acting essentially as maintenance technicians being supported by drones and command from a spaceship after a recent war. There is a supposed hole in the plot around this part of the film which did get me thinking. I won't go into detail as it would spoil the film but the reason for the supposed hole in the plot is revealed later in the piece and subsequently makes sense but until you understand it will bug you. There is also a character in the film who reminds of of GlaDOS from the Portal games - see if you can spot her ;) The end of the movie is also a bit brief and quickly resolved. Nonetheless, the day after watching the film I'm still thinking about the script, which is a good thing. It's clever and will make you go back to it.

The aesthetics of the film are great - it's been shot beautifully, with some gorgeous camera work. The framing and composition of shots is typically great and the CGI is fantastic and evocative. If you get the chance, watch this film in HD as the quality of the cinematography - in terms of lenses and photography make it worth it.

This is a minimal 'sci-fi' movie in many ways - in the same vein as Solaris or 2001: A Space Odyssey. Much of the sci-fi tech is considered and tries to be believable and real rather than futuristic for the sake of being so. Nonetheless, all good sci-fi movies should demonstrate some interesting future tech and this film doesn't disappoint. There are some neat droids which support the humans, not to mention a swimming pool in the sky.

The scoring of the movie is good, minimal in parts and with an electronic feel that at times reminded me of something from that Vangelis might have scored.

I'd recommend checking this film out. It's worth it for seeing the beautifully rendered minimal future world alone. If you really want to know more, here's a trailer for it which will give half the plot away - I'd recommend you just watch the film!

Jessica: 'My experience as an apprentice at FW!'

Nat + Rob: If you're a client of ours or work with us on projects in any other capacity then you'll likely know Jess, our apprentice of 6 months. Jess works on all manor of assignments and projects at FW - from office administration and production coordination to editing and assisting on shoots. We asked her to write a blog post about what it has been like for her working as part of the FW team for the last 1/2 year and you can read her post below. It makes for interesting reading, especially if you're considering becoming an apprentice or if you're a company considering taking an apprentice on. From FLETCHERWILSON's point of view we're really enjoying having an enthusiastic, conscientious and hard working apprentice as part of the FW team and would recommend apprenticeships to other companies that could benefit from all than an enthusiastic person, who is ready to learn, can bring. Thanks for being part of the team Jess.

Jess: Leaving school half way through my second year of Sixth Form wasn't an easy decision. I wasn't just leaving my friends behind, I was solidifying the decision I'd made that university wasn't the route I wanted to take – at least not at this point in my life. I’d already left Sixth Form after the first year and come back again so I needed to really make sure this time that leaving was a risk I wanted to take. So what was I going to do instead? At first I wasn't really sure. I knew I wanted to start earning my own wage and I knew I wanted to gain experiences that weren't limited to ones I'd already come across in education. Getting a job would allow me to do both of these things. So, the answer was easy right?

Well although getting a job may have seemed like my only option, no matter how many times you're told it's a tough climate and there literally is just a lack of jobs, you never imagine how true this is until you start looking for one. The GCSE grades I had were good and so were the three AS Levels I had gotten during my time at Sixth Form, but the only experience I had working was two weeks at a nursery on work placement at school. Seen as I thought I wanted to go into the media industry I was right to think that stopping kids running their trucks through their lunch wasn't going to be particularly helpful. I did fairly well at school and I wasn't used to feeling like I wasn't quite good enough, I always tried my hardest and got by. I got a lot of rejection and that was hard to deal with.

After a few days of feeling sorry for myself I decided I needed to be more proactive about getting myself out there, and then I recalled a conversation I’d had years ago with a teacher about apprenticeships. Now, I don’t know about other schools but aside from this conversation I barely remembered having in class years prior, getting onto an apprenticeship was not an option that was widely advertised for us. With an apprenticeship you gain experience in a field of your choice in a real work environment, an actual qualification and you’re earning your own money. I’d love for apprenticeships to be more widely spoke of so people my age know they've got more than one option. 

In any case, I got onto the Apprenticeships website and searched for places in media production companies. I managed to get an interview with an apprenticeship provider almost straight away and I already felt so much better. I did well at the interview and they said they’d find me some companies to interview for. I got home and within two days I had another interview, this time with a media production company. I did some brief research on the company, travelled to Stratford, went to the interview and within two hours of getting home I was offered the placement! I was so relieved and excited to start my new job, so of course, I accepted. The following Monday I showed up at FLETCHERWILSON ready to start my first day at work.

I don’t think I could have asked for a better company to be placed with. The guys I work for and everyone I've met since being here have been understanding, helpful and eager to teach me new things. But that’s not to say I haven’t found it difficult. Coming to work every day when most of my peers were still back at school was hard and I never thought I’d say it but, I really did miss being at school. I didn't have that much confidence and as silly as it sounds I even had trouble answering the phones at first. Starting work enabled me to do a lot of growing up that I didn't know I had to do. My confidence has grown so much and I've learnt such a lot about myself. Aside from all the personal ways I feel I have developed, I've also gained a lot of knowledge and new skills. One thing I like most about working here is the versatility. I've been out helping on shoots, operated auto-cue, booked crew and kit, handled a job with a client and so much more. Aside from these things I spend most of my time in the office, acting as receptionist and doing little jobs as and when they are needed. My qualification is in Business Administration (so we have to stick some slightly more boring stuff in there too.) Although, don’t ask me to do double sided printing… - ask Rob about that one! At times I've been given responsibilities that I didn't think I could handle but I felt that I've always overcome my fears and tried my best (but again, you’d have to see what Rob and Nat though about that one!).

I’m about half way through my apprenticeship now and really feel I have gained a true insight into what it would be like to work in this sector in the future. I'm not really sure what specific area interests me yet. I’ve been having a go at editing and I’ll be doing more of that and hopefully in the next few months I’ll experience going out on more shoots and get some more experience with operating a camera.

I wanted to write this post for several reasons but mainly to give some insight about my experience as a school leaver and as an apprentice to other people my age. I know there are bound to be loads of people out there, around my age, that are feeling lost and at a loose end. This really was the best thing I could have done, not only in terms of my career, but in terms of what was good for me personally. There are a lot of opportunities available to young people, so don’t think you have to go to university or study A Levels if that’s not for you. As long as you’re willing to work hard and go out of your comfort zone you really can achieve anything!

Finally I want to thank Rob and Nat for putting up with me! I’ve had my moments but I’m not all bad really. I look forward to what the next sixth months has in store for me and I’m ready to see what else I can accomplish. Whatever happens I know I can look back on this whole experience and say I'm glad I got onto an apprenticeship and I’m proud to have worked for FLETCHERWILSON.

Do you know the top 3 qualities of a successful viral video?

The likelihood of a video on the internet becoming viral seems to be startlingly unpredictable. Nonetheless, there are certain trends that seem to be evident across many of the videos that make it virally. We've been conducting research into which qualities a viral film should have in order to maximise it's chances of being a viral success and our results are detailed in this post.

We started by looking at the most popular videos on YouTube as defined by YouTube's own ranking system, based on video views. Our research is based on YouTube ranking as of 16-17/7/2013



The first thing that we noticed was the prevalence of music videos. Of the top 30 most viewed videos on YouTube, 29 of them are music videos (16/7/2013). The video with the most hits is familiar to many people - Gangnam Style by Psy with 1,746,473,928 views to date. Whilst we're not anti music videos, we're more interested in the visual and intellectual content that makes a video popular and for this reason we've excluded music videos from our research.
Once you remove the music category, YouTube have 14 official categories of video remaining:

1. Cars & Vehicles 
2. Comedy 
3. Education 
4. Entertainment 
5. Film & Animation 
6. Gaming 
7. Howto & Style 
8. News & Politics 
9. Non-profits & Activism 
10. People & Blogs 
11. Pets & Animals 
12. Science & Technology 
13. Sport 
14. Travel & Events

We took the top 350 videos on YouTube that are not music videos and ordered them by views. When we'd done that we stripped out all but the top 100 and placed them into the YouTube categories.

When organised by the number of videos featuring in the top 100 list, the categories look like this:

It's probably not a surprise that the top two categories that YouTube define are 'Entertainment' followed by 'Comedy'. Both categories are universally appealing and also unhelpfully broad.

With all the music videos removed from the top 100 YouTube videos of all time the list becomes more interesting. The most viewed video on YouTube of all time is one which many people are familiar with - 'Charlie Bit My Finger - Again' with 531,821,006 views.

Are you familiar with the 3rd most popular video on YouTube of all time - 'Thigh Massage Video' ? For people who might be a bit scared to follow the link, the video is a purely educational video, and not of exceptional quality either. We're not sure why this video has so many hits - at it's peak in mid 2011 the video was being watched over 600,000 times a day. If you can shed any light on this, get in touch and let us know.


Given that the categories of video as defined by YouTube are very broad, and given that we are more interested in the emotional and intellectual drivers for video popularity, we've created our own categories. We've focussed less on the specific physical content and more on the qualities of the video, the reasons someone might like or dislike it. Unlike the YouTube categories we've also allowed videos to fall into more than one category.


Here are our categories:

• Amazing / Incredible - 'That is truly fantastic!' 
• Cute 
• Educational 
• Famous Talent - Features famous people with lots of followers 
• Funny 
• Inspiring - 'Changes my thinking (and probably makes me want to cry)' 
• Moving - 'Makes me want to cry' 
• Rude / Outrageous - Gritted teeth / cringing / 'How could they do that!' 
• Sexy - Overtly titillating or sexual content 
• Topical / Referential - refers to current events or plays on a meme 
• Weird / Bizarre - 'I can't believe that's possible - how could that happen?'

We took the top 30 most viewed films of all time from YouTube and studied them to determine which of the categories we'd identified each video fell into. Each video could fall into as many categories as was appropriate.


Next we took a random selection of 30 videos from YouTube and performed the same analysis, determining which categories they fell into.
Here are the results:

Here are the results for the random 30 YouTube videos presented on their own and ordered by most to least common qualities that the videos had:

CONCLUSIONS

If you want to have viral success, making something that is funny and weird and includes famous people is a great place to start. If you can't get all of that then go for funny as it's far and away the most common quality that the most viewed videos on YouTube demonstrate.


The 'average' video on YouTube is categorised as 'educational' - most often a tutorial video. If you make a video that falls into this category it is going to have a lot of competition in the viral stakes and may struggle to get noticed. Educational qualities don't feature highly in the most successful viral videos.


If you want to see the data we collected, including all 350 top non-music video YouTube videos, you can find our data here.

New Kit in the FW office

We've just taken delivery of some new production kit. It's bespoke one off custom made gear, possibly even rarer than Shoot Blues sadly missing Samyang uncoated lenses. 

The kit is precision made, but it weighs a tonne. This is what it looks like:

It's got a ghetto FW brand all over it which we particularly like:

There are two of them which work together, and you can carry them .... just:

So, the questions are ......

1. What are these called?
2. What are they for?
3. Who made ours?

Answers on a postcard please, before Rob drops them on his foot....

10 ways to get a great performance when filming an interview

We spend a lot of time interviewing people from all walks of life. From political leaders to captains of industry, superstars to people who've never been in front of a camera before. Whoever we’re interviewing our objectives are always the same - to present them in the best light and to allow them to be themselves and get their message across clearly and confidently.

Some people know exactly what they're doing in front of a camera, whilst other people are new to the experience, can find it daunting, and need some guidance. Here are some of the tips that we've picked up along the way....

1. Don't use a script or teleprompt. Instead craft questions that will elicit the responses that you're after. The delivery will be much more natural and believable.

2. Make your subject feel comfortable working with you. If possible try and meet them before the day of filming so that you are not a complete stranger to them. On the day of filming be very welcoming with them. Don't ever get impatient with them if they aren't delivering exactly as you would like, tell them you have all the time in the world to get a good delivery (even if in reality you only have 3 minutes).

3. Help your subject picture the kind of delivery you're looking for. For example ask them to imagine that they are talking to a close friend .... or giving advice to someone they want to help ..... or are speaking to a close confidant. This will be much easier for them to understand than asking them to smile more or speak more authoritatively.

4. Allay your subject's fears regarding how they'll come across. Your interview subject may not be aware that you will choose the best possible take and ensure that they are presented in the best possible light. Make them aware of this. Let them know that you'll be involved in the edit and will make sure they come across well. Allow your interview subject the right to veto any takes that they're unhappy with and they'll feel more confident to be themselves.

5. Don’t say ‘Action!’ Some people will freeze whenever you say the word 'Action!', instead, once the cameras are turning over, tell the subject 'OK, whenever you're ready'.

6. Don't have superfluous people on set. Runners, clients, or other people who don't need to be there looking at the filming this can make the subject nervous. Ask them to clear the set for a while. Also bear in mind that sometimes people are nervous about performing within earshot of colleagues in case they say the wrong thing.

7. Be positive about people's performances whilst telling them where they can improve it. Subjects will relax more when you tell them how well they're doing and they'll be receptive to improving their performances if they think they have a knack for it.

8. Try again and again. Many interview subjects are new to being filmed and the more you takes you do, the better the performance will get. Often if you tell the subject that they gave you an excellent performance that you can use but you're going to film a couple more times just for luck, they relax and give their best performance yet. If you think you're done and you've got what you need, ask your subject if they're happy or if they'd like to go again. Sometimes they'll be keen to go again and deliver an even better performance. If you and they are happy with what you've recorded then you can move on. On the other hand, if someone is having a problem with a particular question, put it on hold and come back to it later.

9. Be open to unscripted questioning. Develop a genuine interest in the topics and responses that your subject is conveying. Don't be afraid to ask side questions based upon previous answers even if it is likely to elicit a response you won't use in your edit - it will demonstrate that you really are listening and will get your subject to open up more.

10. Get your subject to help you. When you've finished interviewing someone, when you've asked all the questions you have, ask them if there is anything else they'd like to add. Sometimes the best footage comes right at the end like this.


What tips would you add to this list? Let us know...

Learn to code!

A great film that's gone viral and which is about the benefits of coding in society and as a job. Worth watching. Makes me want to write 10 print "hello world!", 20 goto 10.