Comics Doc Tape Diary #2

Today, I encountered the first interview so far that is marred by one of the sound people moving the mic around; bip, bip, bip, bip. Fortunately, this isn't constant and I should be able to cut around the bobbles. I also hit one of the two tapes where the video mode had been shifted accidentally in the bag and went unnoticed until after several minutes had been recorded. At the time, I chose to play out the tape in the incorrect mode, but switched to the proper mode when a new tape was started. That may not have been the best choice. It might have been better to record the whole interview in the wrong mode and then conformed it all later. I won't really know what the effect of this choice will be until I get into editing proper. Finally, on the flaws and mistakes front, I learned that one of the people who worked on the tape logs managed to record over about two minutes of one of the interviews. I don't think I lost anything
valuable, but it was a shock. Am glad that this particular person did not get a chance to do work on the logs in an extensive way.

I've also noticed that my in-person perceptions of the interviews are not always born out on screen. I have found subjects that seemed kind of flat during recording coming across much better on playback. The differences are not dramatic, but enough to be encouraging. Less common is for a dyamic in-person interview to be turned flat in review. This is also encouraging, obviously.

One of the hardest things about this process is listening to my own voice on tape-after-tape.