Digital News Production Unit- Travelling to Canterbury, collecting Vox Pops.

Today ARMA traveled to Canterbury to collect some interviews from the general public for our U2 Album story. Originally, we said we were going to film this story at a place called Tottenham Court Road in London. However, due to our inexperience working with cameras so far away from home, and due to London's quite high crime-rate, we decided it would be better for all of us to film at Canterbury High Street instead, as it is somewhere we are familiar with, and somewhere we would feel safe.
We at my flat in Chatham at 10am, as it was the most convenient place for everyone to meet, and once we had all arrived, we made sure to do a kit-check to make sure we had everything we needed before taking Andrei's car to Canterbury.The journey there was around 40 minutes to an hour long, which was plenty of time for me to familiarize myself with the questions I would be asking the public about the album.

When we reached our destination, we decided to split our group up, with me and Andrei setting up the camera equipment in a local McDonalds, whilst Andy and Roxanne went about trying to find a suitable place for us to film. This proved to be a very difficult thing to do, as even once we had set up the camera equipment, we had a few problems with choosing a nice, quiet yet active environment for us to film at.

Something that we also made sure to do was speak to some Canterbury security guards to make sure that we would be allowed to film in this area. Originally we asked to film at a place called Fremlin Walk, as it is owned privately. However, we did not receive a response until very late in the day, and there were some strict conditions applied by the owners of Fremlin Walk, such was wanting to know exactly what our project was about, what we would film and where, and for how long.

One of Andy's location test shots.

We eventually found our perfect spot, which showed a lot of people using the busy high-street, but was still quiet enough for us to be able to collect the footage we need and have suitable sound levels without interference from passer-bys.

Journeying around Canterbury to find a place with suitable sound levels. (A plane was overhead in this area, which affected the sound quality somewhat.)

The next step we took was for Roxanne (our producer) to collect members of the public that would be interested in being interviewed for our news story. This proved to be actually quite difficult, as every time Roxanne would approach someone, they would immediately assume she was trying to sell them something, or get them to sign up to some service they didn't want, and they would immediately shut down and move on. We found that a lot of the time, Andrei approaching people whilst holding the camera equipment was a much safer bet as it was something people are not used to, and so we would immediately grab their attention.

Andrei operating the camera equipment.

Once Roxanne and Andrei had managed to get a hold of people that would be interested in appearing on camera, they would then get them to sign a declaration (permission slip) which would basically allow us to use their image in our project without fear of being sued.

The Vox pop collecting part of this project went off without a hitch, and altogether we managed to get around 7-8 vox pops of people with varying opinions of the U2 album being on their phone. My job at this point was to basically run through a list of questions I had for the public, and hold the microphone which would collect their answers. We decided to have the camera's mic running, as well as get me to hold a hand-held mic. This way we have more than 1 form of audio, and it's always better to have more sound sources to choose from.

Me collecting the Vox Pop interviews from members of the public while Andrei records.

Once we had collected these Vox Pops, we returned home.

Returning to Chatham from Canterbury

The next step for me to take is to return home to Nottingham for the weekend, and collect the necessary attire for me to be a presentable reporter for when we return to Canterbury and capture my actual report. Once this is done, we can go back to Canterbury, collect the footage we need there, and then I can begin the editing process of this unit and start to put everything together for this U2 story. I am very much looking forward to it, and I found today to be a valuable and exciting experience.