Wumpus, on 21 March 2012 - 05:06 PM, said:
Hi all,
I'm going to PAX East this year as an IMG Rep and thusly getting a Media pass.
Its my first time attending a convention so I'm very excited. I was wondering if anyone else who is a mac gamer/IMG'er would be attending? Would be fun to meet up.
Also I have a specific request. If someone else is coming, would anyone be interested in doing some photo/video for/with me? I plan to interview lots of people and demo stuff, so having a 2nd person who could photo or video would be great. I have a pretty good camera and recording devices that I would lend. Otherwise I'll do what I can on my own, but thought to put it out here ahead of time in case someone bites.
Closer to the event I'll be creating a separate thread which I'll post updates on throughout the day or at the end of the day depending on how it works out. Also going to be using Twitter, just not sure which account yet.
Dam, I would love to help with the video only if Boston was next to Australia. I don't claim to know a lot but I have a little experience in the area of interviewing people for a short documentary I did a year ago. I did pick up a few things from that experience, maybe this could help in a way.
If you can't get anyone you could ask someone around. I know that might seem crazy but these big developers do have multiple PR people around, I'm sure they would be able to help film if you ask them.
You could also ask if they would do an interview back at your hotel if its not to far and if you're worried about the camera safety. Set up a tripod and get both of you in frame, easy. Then again it might make the interview seem less dynamic with a steady shot for 10 minutes. But if it was only for a 2-4 minutes (or you cut out the bad stuff down to just a few minutes) I'm sure it'll be fine. Just make sure that you make the person you interview not look down the barrel of the camera, CREEPY!!!
You might even put the camera on a tripod and sit away from the camera and make the interviewee speak to you rather then the camera. I know when I did this doco a last year I got a friend to stand and have the interviewee talk to the friend while I said the questions behind the camera. There a lots of trick I'm sure you'll come up with. But then again if you're not worried about a random grabbing you camera and running, then I guess this same concept can apply to being on the show floor as well.
Here is an example of this guy who interviews people from the film industry. I'm pretty sure he's a one man show but if not it wouldn't be too hard to do it alone.
Here's another example of The Verge doing an
interview on the Mobile World Congress show floor. I haven't watched the whole thing but the bits I did see do show what you can do on the high end. I know The Verge put a lot of time and effort into their videos so It might seem a bit difficult but I'm sure you can take elements from it to implement in your videos
Another thing you could do is just drop the video and do audio instead. You could even use the microphone in an mobile phone or something if you wanted to go really low budget. With this audio you could use the sound and put it over footage you take while at the show. Or even create a special PAX edition podcast with these edited audio clips in it.
Oh also, If you can, get an external mic, I'm not sure what your camera is but I know a lot do have a place where you can put another mic in. That will dramatically cut down the noise from the crowded hall I know you'll be in. And If you can monitor the audio that would help greatly as well. I know with my little film, the sound did prove to be one of the worst parts of it. If you have to ability to master it, everything else should work just fine.
I'm not sure what sort of angle you are going for. Is it like these 2-4 minutes videos I talked about earlier or will it be like a recap sort of thing that will take the best bits over the whole convention? This will drastically effect how your content will be shot.
Here is another example done by The Verge which shows how you can do a "wrap-up" video. This
specific example is a SXSWI.
I know these aren't the perfect solutions but if you are a one man band, these are the best ideas I could come up with. You probably already know most of these but I'm just trying to help while I'm so far away
If you have any thoughts or questions feel free to let me know, I've always been curious to see how these events pan out in terms of video content.
Hope this helps
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