Digital News: Demelza (Shoot Day)

Today we went to the Demelza House in Sittingbourne to film two interviews for the package story. We arrived at 10am as this was the time that was most convenient for the interviewees. We then met with Helen who we had organised the meeting through over email. She took us into her office space which was one of the quieter ones. We had a little scout around for possible interview locations for the one with Alex but decided that this office space would be the quietest and most suitable. Alex applied for the grant for the Tesco 'Bag of Help' scheme in order to receive funding for the sensory garden so we felt an interview with her could be very informative. Alex usually works in an office space so we dressed it a little by turning the radio off and moving a couple of things out of the way for the set up shots. We filmed her sitting at the desk typing and looking at the computer which we will use for her introduction. For the interview itself we instructed Alex to make the answers self contained as we weren't going to use an interviewers voice in the final film. The interview went very successfully with no technical issues - helped by the office location which meant we could really take our time to get the shots right. Alex was very comfortable in front of the camera and was able to give us some very in detail answers which will be great for the news piece.

For the second interview, we met Alison who is the assistant gardener at this Demelza House. She showed us round the area of land which is looking quite neglected at the moment. It is a relatively large space with varying slopes and compartments which will be great with all of the elements that they want to include for the new garden. We thought she would be good to interview as she knows what the plans are and what is going on currently which meant that she could tell us lots about it. She was very friendly and chatty when we spoke to her which was reassuring and made the process very easy going. Again we asked her to answer with self contained responses as we would not be including the voice of the presenter for this interview. She was also very chatty throughout the interview and it seemed successful. However, we had a found sound issues half way through the interview due to a lead connection on the clip mic. This meant that the sound was cutting out occasionally. We managed to resolve this by having Ellen holding the clip mic out of sight of the camera to keep it connected and started again. Despite this, the sound quality seemed fine. After the initial interview, we asked Alison to give us a little tour and tell us about the section the gardeners were currently working on. Lastly we used the last hour of filming to take a few GVs of the location including a metal tree they have on the wall. This was particularly interesting as the leaves all have writing on them which say who bought the leaf and therefore donated to the charity. Hopefully these shots will give the audience some insight into the charity and encourage more donations. Overall, it was a successful shoot day!



Here are the interview questions from today:

Alex
1. Why did you apply for the Tesco 'Bag of Help' scheme?
2. What was the collaboration with Tesco like during the process of the application?
3. What are your plans if you are granted the money?
4. How do you hope that the garden will benefit the children in your care?
5. Are there any other upcoming projects for Demelza?

Alison
1. Are the children able to use the garden in its current state?
2. What are your intentions with the garden?
3. How long do you think the process of renovating the garden will take?
4. How important is this renovation?
5. How was it decided that you would create a sensory garden?