...And Commence the Interviews

I put out a casting call of sorts on the Film Arts Facebook group. I felt that some even fleeting connection to the interviewee would aid in not only the interview, but turning up on the day as well. I got a good response, ten people responded to the offer.

Of those, one had to drop out for unspecified reasons, another failed to respond to any of my requests for vital information, and the third was never contacted after I decided not only did I have enough interviewees as is, but that, based on his initial response to the call, he would be a poor fit for the film.

The interviewing commenced with Dan. It was a good start, not only was he very receptive and articulate, but he also gave me a 'plan B' in the form of a full 30-minute rant about the state of reality television and popular music. If all else failed and I got nothing usable from the interviews, I could abandon my idea and just animate a fifteen minute version of the rant. As is, only some choice highlights were used as a post-credits 'stinger', a la Mystery Science Theater 3000.


Next was Jared. Although more laid-back a subject, and whose life prior to college ended up being more interesting than the film-making discussion itself, it was a good talk. Ciaran's interview was more scattershot, leaping from topic to topic as he introduced interesting tangents to spin off on time and time again. I felt at the time that Leah's was the second weakest interview, not due to any fault of hers, but mine as an interviewer for not finding an interesting enough throughline in what she was saying. Billy's was the most fascinating, obviously due to his leaving, but seemed a tad underwhelming to me immediately after filming.

The worst one was Jamie's. Not a very talkative person (at least not to me on the topics I brought up) anyway, being put in front of a camera seemed to cause him to dry at every turn, answering every question with non-committal half-answers that left me with nothing to work with, either as usable footage or as a way to continue the conversation. His interview ran less than half the length of his peers for a reason. George's was a better way to end on, his take more gossip-y and interested in interpersonal conflicts than the others.

After I had shot the interviews, I was dismayed. I had no idea how to make something worthwhile out of the (seemingly) lacklustre odds and ends I had. I whittled down the audio to about an hour of usable recordings, and then whittled that hour down to less than 15 minutes on the arbitrary distinction of what parts were related to college. I had had the idea of making the film a mockumentary about an art college on a space station with robot and alien students, but thought that a more interesting throughline would appear through the interviews. It did not.

To this day, I do not know how I managed to make Orange Blues as entertaining as it is. The parts used to make it were not very strong to say the least, and yet assembled in this specific order it came together in a way I'd given up hope of happening.