You and I used the same videocopilot tutorial for our titles.
It's great that you're figuring things out with the editing software. That is a huge early hurdle. As for your documentary, I think you're kind of doing it backwards.
I believe it's best, when making documentaries, to have a narrative first, then visuals are plugged in to match the narrative. This can be a written narration, a la PBS Nature documentaries. Or, as I've always done, it can be a narrative edited together from various interviews. Either way, it's content first, visuals second (music third).
I am hoping to get feed back on making my shots look more cinematic. I did a lot of zoom in, zoom out, panning, but are there better ways? Any ideas about transitions would be great. Also about conducting interviews.
zooming/panning -- stop doing that. It doesn't look cinematic. It looks like the very first thing an untrained camera operator would do. First-time camera operators always feel like they need to be doing something. There's absolutely nothing wrong with a static shot. What's more important is that the shot be interesting. You've got a lot of room to play with shot composition. How about getting something in the foreground? Instead of plopping the camera directly in front of the building on the sidewalk, how about you move the camera off to the side, and in the bushes -- use the foilage to frame the shot? That's but one example. I think you'll get much more "cinematic" shots by getting creative with the space you're in, than by panning/zooming.
As for interviews, well, that's a big subject, but I'll try to give a couple pointers. First, I think it's really great if you can find a way to make it feel like a conversation. Don't just rattle off questions from a list. Do your best to let the conversation flow in a natural direction, listen to your interviewee and respond accordingly.
Here's the caveat, though -- don't turn it into a conversation. I know, I just contradicted myself, but the art of the interview is kind of self-contradictory. If you completely turn it into a real conversation, you're not going to get any workable soundbites, because you'll be constantly talking over the interviewee. Let them finish. I mean,
really let them finish. You can ask a question, and the interviewee can answer, and then they stop talking, as if they're done answering the question. So of course your natural instinct would be that okay, now it's your turn to talk again. Don't. Stay silent. Let there be an awkward pause. Use your acting skills to make it seem like you're just digesting what they just said -- furrow your brows, nod your head, whatever -- just don't talk. What you'll find is that your interviewee will fill this dead space. They will further answer the question that they tought they were done answering, and a lot of times, your best material comes in these 2nd round answers.
Sometimes they don't fill the dead space, though, so then of course you move on.
