I have set a side this week to record
the interviews for the bio part of my book. In discussion within the
class the BBC programme The Listening Project has been high lighted
as a model for the type of interview / sound track, we should employ
for our illustrated interview.
The BBC inform us on their web site “
The Listening Project is a Radio 4 initiative that offers a snapshot
of contemporary Britain in which people across the UK volunteer to
have a conversation with someone close to them about a subject
they've never discussed intimately before. Every conversation -
they're not BBC interviews, and that's an important difference -
lasts up to an hour, and is then edited to extract the key moment of
connection between the participants.” Many of these interview are
going to be held by the British library in longer forms.
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| BBC Listening Project |
Research for interview
Looking at all of the archive materiel
I have on my Great-grandfather James Hunt I have draw up a list of
topics I hope my mother will cover in conversation.
Where did James Hunt come from. What
was his families background. What kind of person was he, physically
and personality. We have a copy of article from the News of the world
1952 how did that come about. In family folk law James like to gamble
on the horses. The other major family story of a bomb dropping in the
middle of the street during the war.
Many of these things I all ready know
about, what is important is its my mother has to tell the story.
I am going to my mother house, and in
quite room conduct the interview without notes in a cam a relaxed
atmosphere.
Equipment
For the recording process I will be
using a “Zoom H1” to record the interview and to edit the
recording I will use the program “Audacity”. The Zoom is a hand
held stereo mini recorder with built in microphone. It can be mounted
on a tripod and has a removable micro card or it can be connected to
your computer by cable to down load files. Its saves as mp3 or a wav
file. Levels can be set manually or set in an auto level mode. There
is one simple record button to record or stop the recording. It comes
with a build in speaker to hear the play back.
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| Zoom H1 Recorder |
The day of the recording
I went to my mothers house late morning
and we used her dinning room and sat near each other near the table.
I sat at a distance which was comfortable but not to close, almost
side on and at arms distance from my mother. I set up the recorder
and held it close to her face. Before we started I set out what I
hoped would happen during the interview. I asked if my mother could
repeat the question if I ask one tell her this would help with
editing. I started by making sure the recorder was on and recording.
I first asked who was James Hunt. My mother started by saying that
James was her grandfather and continued the story of his life. She
spoke for 8 to 10 mins with a few interruptions from me to steer the
interview when needed. I pressed the stop / record button only to
discover it had been on pause. After we both laughed about it we went
through the process again. The second interview did not flow as well
as the first, we took a short break and went through the process for
a third time. After that I returned home to work on the recordings.
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