Right now we do this in the big sense. We ask of our galleries what the big experience is. In each exhibit we kind of ask what the experience is. I don't know if we go all the way though. We think about the hook, the core messaging, and what "walk-away" success would be, but I don't know if we ever talk about the experience at that detail level.
If someone plays with one of our interactives, or looks at our video wall, what do they experience?
I can tell you what I hope they walk away with. Sometimes it's success if they walk away with even the lightest grasp on the challenges facing a certain animal. If it is a multi-layered message it can be great if they pick up any of the layers, as long as they get at least one.
But when it comes to the experience they had at the spin-browser, or the experience they had the video-wall or the experience they had at one of the habitats, I don't know if we really put it all together to consider that. I think we should.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Saturday, October 25, 2008
How to interview now with more text
Alternate sides of the camera you ask the questions from. Just keep switching sides every time you do an interview. When you edit you'll be able to cut between people on different sides of the frame instead of everyone stuck to the same side.
Ask open ended questions for interesting responses.
Do not ask any question that can be answered with a yes or no.
Train the people to restate the question or answer in a complete sentence. Instead of "yeah Dave totally does that" you'll get "Dave is totally the guy that screws around on his girlfriends". Much better.
Tape off or turn off your tally light so they don't know when you are recording.
Wrap the interview, tell them you are done, physically relax then compliment them on something they said or say "i though you were going to talk about x, thank god you didn't". The trick is, the camera is still recording.
Then they start talking in a super casual manner about all sorts of stuff in an amazingly relaxed tone. Some of the best clips ever come from that trick.
Also just start rolling at the beginning, before you say lets get started. It's not so much about tricking people into saying bad things, as it is about tricking them into being relaxed and themselves in front of the camera.
This is a stupid one, but listen. It's amazing how many don't listen, don't engage in a real conversation, and don't ask the follow-up question.
People often hint at stories that they won't volunteer on their own, but will willingly give up if you ask them directly.
Write your questions down. You don't need to stick to them, but at least you know where you came from and where you are going.
Look them in the eye and be interested.
Don't ever interrupt them.
Let silence hang. Often they will jump in and fill the silence in an effort to make things less uncomfortable.
Nod while talking to them, but don't say anything unless you need to. Their voice is important, not yours.
Always encourage them that they are giving the best interview ever.
If you aren't getting what you need, and you are trying to get something out of them, and you've been at it for awhile, and they are getting nervous, tell them to relax. They already gave you some great answers which now gives you the luxury of getting picky and more in depth. Lies, but it will make them feel comfortable.
There you go. That's over 1000 interviews for camera's worth of experience for you in a lowly, less travelled SA forum.
Ask open ended questions for interesting responses.
Do not ask any question that can be answered with a yes or no.
Train the people to restate the question or answer in a complete sentence. Instead of "yeah Dave totally does that" you'll get "Dave is totally the guy that screws around on his girlfriends". Much better.
Tape off or turn off your tally light so they don't know when you are recording.
Wrap the interview, tell them you are done, physically relax then compliment them on something they said or say "i though you were going to talk about x, thank god you didn't". The trick is, the camera is still recording.
Then they start talking in a super casual manner about all sorts of stuff in an amazingly relaxed tone. Some of the best clips ever come from that trick.
Also just start rolling at the beginning, before you say lets get started. It's not so much about tricking people into saying bad things, as it is about tricking them into being relaxed and themselves in front of the camera.
This is a stupid one, but listen. It's amazing how many don't listen, don't engage in a real conversation, and don't ask the follow-up question.
People often hint at stories that they won't volunteer on their own, but will willingly give up if you ask them directly.
Write your questions down. You don't need to stick to them, but at least you know where you came from and where you are going.
Look them in the eye and be interested.
Don't ever interrupt them.
Let silence hang. Often they will jump in and fill the silence in an effort to make things less uncomfortable.
Nod while talking to them, but don't say anything unless you need to. Their voice is important, not yours.
Always encourage them that they are giving the best interview ever.
If you aren't getting what you need, and you are trying to get something out of them, and you've been at it for awhile, and they are getting nervous, tell them to relax. They already gave you some great answers which now gives you the luxury of getting picky and more in depth. Lies, but it will make them feel comfortable.
There you go. That's over 1000 interviews for camera's worth of experience for you in a lowly, less travelled SA forum.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Too/to bold?
When to use bold and when not to, it's this afternoon's office discussion.
We've just finished new screens for the beluga underwater and we have a nifty new design. It looks good. However, for design sake several words of each phrase are bold, and several are normal font.
It looks good, but the discussion is, why are we bolding those words?
In a full sentence we don't do that because if you need to bold a word to call attention to it, maybe you should just rewrite your sentence to present the concept better instead. If one word is more important than others, maybe you should lose the other words.
However in a phrase like "Grey patch behind dorsal" is it bad if you bold "grey patch"?
It looks good and the non-bold words are still important so we can't get rid of them but do we break our own rules?
When does design trump content? Is that a neutral action? Does design only hurt or help content?
Do we overthink this kind of stuff? All valid questions.
We've just finished new screens for the beluga underwater and we have a nifty new design. It looks good. However, for design sake several words of each phrase are bold, and several are normal font.
It looks good, but the discussion is, why are we bolding those words?
In a full sentence we don't do that because if you need to bold a word to call attention to it, maybe you should just rewrite your sentence to present the concept better instead. If one word is more important than others, maybe you should lose the other words.
However in a phrase like "Grey patch behind dorsal" is it bad if you bold "grey patch"?
It looks good and the non-bold words are still important so we can't get rid of them but do we break our own rules?
When does design trump content? Is that a neutral action? Does design only hurt or help content?
Do we overthink this kind of stuff? All valid questions.
I NEED MORE SPACE
12 Terabytes for only 20k what a deal. I think it is going to be a hard item to get through the budget this year. Buying storage is not sexy.
We're 500 GB from using up our 10TB of storage. That means we need more room. I'm sure we have a bunch of crap on there, but really we chew up space at the rate of a gig a minute for footage. We need big chunks free, not just a file here and there.
I figure we can keep ourselves to 2.5 TB stored footage per year. That should give a lifespan for the 12 TB array of 3 years or so (RAID 5). So I'm going to have to make sure people understand the yearly cost is about 6K. They are still not going to like that number so I'll also need to explain about falling drive costs.
With any luck that will convince people. In all fairness I did say that storage costs would be an ongoing expense.
Monday, October 6, 2008
The workflow of it all
Final Cut Server really is an amazing piece of software. It remarkably customizable and though complex, even a hack like myself can start to move around it pretty easily.
That said, the real complexity is not even in the software. The real complexity lies in your workflow and the personalities that drive it.
Right now I'm trying to figure out what our workflow is (it's pretty much all over the map) and what it should be.
The problem with an awesome, strategic, comprehensive workflow is people. People actually have to do the things you want them to. They have to enter the right data, in the right spots in a consistent manner.
That is the tricky bit and that is human nature. You have to design a path that will actually be walked. If you do anything else, and you kid yourself that you'll make people stay on the path, you're in for a surprise. You can't make anyone stay on the path, they have to decide to stay on the path.
We had a huge control vocabulary that would bring our cataloguing up to library standards. I slashed and burned the thing. There is no way anyone would ever go to that level of detail when uploading data. They'd go around it and we'd have a totally flawed system.
So I've simplified. Hopefully the simplified system will work out. It doesn't ask for much effort, just consistent effort. We'll see how well that works.
After all the system to have all our stories have a simple 3-4 word title that is consistent from raw footage to final delivery, is hardly a success, and that is about as easy as you get.
That said, the real complexity is not even in the software. The real complexity lies in your workflow and the personalities that drive it.
Right now I'm trying to figure out what our workflow is (it's pretty much all over the map) and what it should be.
The problem with an awesome, strategic, comprehensive workflow is people. People actually have to do the things you want them to. They have to enter the right data, in the right spots in a consistent manner.
That is the tricky bit and that is human nature. You have to design a path that will actually be walked. If you do anything else, and you kid yourself that you'll make people stay on the path, you're in for a surprise. You can't make anyone stay on the path, they have to decide to stay on the path.
We had a huge control vocabulary that would bring our cataloguing up to library standards. I slashed and burned the thing. There is no way anyone would ever go to that level of detail when uploading data. They'd go around it and we'd have a totally flawed system.
So I've simplified. Hopefully the simplified system will work out. It doesn't ask for much effort, just consistent effort. We'll see how well that works.
After all the system to have all our stories have a simple 3-4 word title that is consistent from raw footage to final delivery, is hardly a success, and that is about as easy as you get.
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