This week I shot my Interview with Claire Bridge. Myself and Riah travelled, I would say all the way out too Wheelers Hill, but it’s really not that far away, unless you live on the North side, which we both do. Riah and I carried our gear on two trains and 1 bus to get to Claire’s studio out in Wheelers Hill. I can see why Claire lives here as it’s a pretty beautiful place, it’s still suburban but there are trills, hills and birds everywhere, and for someone that’s passionate about the environment I can see why she lives here. Meeting Claire was awesome, after having spoken via phone or email for so long, it was nice to speak to her in person. The filming of the interview went extremely smoothly, I’d put this down to having planned out everything, such as all the questions I was going to ask prior to the interview. By this stage I had helped Riah film as well as Elise and it was noticeable how much smoother Riah’s interview went because she had pre-planned her questions. Rather than spending an hour asking various questions that you might not use anyway, it’s much more efficient to spend 20 minutes covering exactly what you want to cover. By this stage I’d also had practise setting up lights, doing sound and getting camera shots for people’s portraits so I already knew everything I wanted to shoot. Our setup was pretty simple, two large lights, one on Claire’s front right and one on Claire’s front left, two Canon EOS 60D DSLR’s at different positions (one straight on, one to the side), a Sony H2N handy recorder and a lapel mic. Everything ran super smoothly, we did the interview first then myself and Riah shot various things in Claire’s studio. Whilst shooting various things in Claire’s studio we also got a chance to both speak to her which was nice, discussing what it is like to be a woman in Melbourne’s art scene and finding out who some of her favourite artists were. Overall the experience was also, I have a lot of friends who are artists so I hope to do more artist portraits in the future. Who conducted the interview Pick the correct answer from the following options: - The author and Riah - Claire's favorite artist - Claire - not enough information
The author and Riah
(Question)
His eyes were open and his head bobbed around at an impossible angle. He was sitting in about forty feet of water, stone dead, one arm pinned between the rocks. As best I could tell, he had been dead when he landed there. The mud and ooze around him were as serene and smooth as he was. The cop who was assisting me swam over and made a palms up gesture. I shrugged back at him and began to work the body loose. The corpse had only one leg, and as I worked I wondered what he had been doing in the lake. I got the arm free and kicked toward the quicksilver surface above me. The body turned bloated and heavy when I broke water with it, and it took three of us to load it into the police launch. I dried off and got a coke out of the cooler. It was getting to be another Texas scorcher, and the sunlight bouncing off the surface of the lake felt like it had needles in it. My mouth was dry from breathing canned air and the carbonation burned like fire. Winslow, from the sheriff's office, sat down next to me. 'I appreciate this, Dan,' he said. 'No problem.' Sam Winslow and I had grown up together about twenty miles outside Austin in a little town called Coupland. We'd fought a lot as kids, and there were still plenty of differences in our politics and educations. But being on the police and fire rescue squad had brought me closer to him again, and I was glad of it. A private detective needs all the friends he can get. 'What do you make of it?' I asked him. 'Accidental drowning, looks like.' I raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything. 'He's got a bump on the head that could have come off a rock. We'll see what the coroner says.' 'Any idea who he is?' Winslow shook his head. He'd gained weight in his face recently and his jowls vibrated with the gesture. Who got coke out of the cooler? Pick the correct answer from the following options: - Sam - Winslow - The narrator - not enough information
(Answer)
The narrator
I’m sitting at the airport on a Sunday morning waiting for my flight to Las Vegas for the now-annual pilgrimage to the NamesCon conference. A few years ago, Vegas was one of my “bucket list” places – one of those iconic cities that one should visit at least once in their life. For me, once was enough. This is now my 4th (I think?) trip to Vegas, and while the city has a lot to offer, it’s just not my cup of tea. For one thing, I’m not a gambler, like at all. I don’t have anything against it, I just don’t enjoy it. It either feels pointless or stressful to me. The city itself makes me a little sad – in some cases, it reeks of desperation. Last time I was there, my cab driver entertained me with stories of how she was working 3 jobs to save up enough to join some mega-massive bingo game. She won a small jackpot a few years back and that allowed her to work only one job for a few months. She was hoping to win again so she could cut back to 1 or 2 jobs. I wondered how many people do similar things – gambling their money away, in big or small chunks, in the hopes of that big score and in the process, putting themselves in a not-great financial situation. I suppose as long it makes them happy, then it’s all OK, but I can’t help but think someone like my cab driver might be happier overall if she only worked 1 job instead of 3, instead of working extra jobs to save up money to gamble her way to financial freedom. But that’s for her to decide, not me.  The juxtaposition of extreme and in-your-face wealth and the homeless people on the Strip also makes me sad. It’s difficult to see people begging for food and sleeping on the street while all around you, millions of dollars are poured into creating a massive playground with every type of indulgence possible. But I’m the first to say that I’ve enjoyed staying in some of the nicer hotel properties there and eating several excellent meals at some of the finer restaurants in the area, so I’m not exactly helping to solve the problem. Who wanted to enter a mega jackpot Bingo game? Pick the correct answer from the following options: - the author's friend - not enough information - the author - the cab driver

the cab driver