Week 6 | Jwhiteual132024

Week 6: 11th-15th March

Monday

To begin the week off, I decided it would be best off to catch up with all 3 external contributors of the documentary, particularly the 2 with misophonia that I last spoke to around 2 weeks ago. I was now in a position where I knew the structure of the documentary and the questions I was going to be asking, meaning I could now give them further information. Additionally, it’s also important that I keep in touch with them as it shows my professionalism and proactiveness; the more they see me as someone trying to produce a really good documentary for a great cause that they have an interest in, the more they will respect and co-operate with me.

In the morning, I spoke with my dad, and he confirmed that the offices would be available to be filmed in for the interview with Tom. This was really good, and I got straight to my emails to let Tom know the news. As of writing this (end of Monday), I have not heard back from Tom yet.

I then decided to contact the two external contributors with misophonia, Erin and Jolene. The image below shows the message I sent to Erin...

The first portion of the message discusses the structure of the documentary. The reason I included this within the message was because I felt it is good for the interviewees to understand what they are going to be a part of it. The more trust I gain from them, the more likely they are to want to actively be a part of the production and therefore give good interviews. Additionally, I also think its simply fair for them to understand what they are going to be a part of, particularly as it will inevitably end up on the internet. The second portion of the message discusses the specific questions they will be asking within each section of the documentary. I sent this to ensure that they are comfortable with the questions I will be asking them and so that I can also get a response from them, answering the questions briefly. I will be asking all of my interviewees to do this, as this will help me to structure the documentary script and edit layout.

After this, I also asked for an email I can send the contributor consent form to, as this way they can look at the form and ensure they are happy with everything on this too.

Moving onto Jolene, I sent the exact message, a part from the specific addition in her section 7 questions discussing the work she does with her mum. Her response to the message and conversation we had can be seen below.

Gladly, she was very happy with everything. Despite this, she then asks, ‘where you thinking of filming’. Which to my shock, I hadn’t already asked her. In my head, for some reason, I had already had this conversation with her, but evidently not. I then asked about filming at her house, stating that I’d be very happy to send any confirmation evidence that proves I am a student. In this situation, I had to put myself in her shoes and think about the position she is in: there is what is essentially, a stranger, asking to film at her own house. It was nice to hear that in her response to this she states that I have been professional and that she is comfortable with filming at her house. However, it was important that her parents/guardians are also on board with this as she is under 18 and living with her parents. To add to this, I would need her parents consent forms for filming on their property anyway. I then sent her both consent forms for her to view and show parents too.

I later got a response from her suggesting her parents opinion on the situation, the message can be viewed below.

Her response was absolutely perfect for me. Her mum was on board with the situation, and all I needed to do was get one of my lecturers to write up an email of confirmation. I think this is absolutely fair given her situation, and I write this in the response to her too.

I then needed to think about myself and how I would get to her house, so I spoke with my parents to discuss the best time for us to go, and my mum said she would enquire about taking the day off of work, allowing me freedom for filming. This is very kind of her, and I let Jolene know the situation, which she was happy with too.

That evening, I also sent out the questions to my Mum and Brother to get their responses to the questions. The logistics for filming with them are far easier as I live with them and personally know them. Evidence of sending the messages to them can be seen below

Tuesday

As it was Tuesday, today we had our weekly meeting for the end of year show. This week I was able to come to the meeting with ideas and concepts. The two concepts I was able to bring forward were the looping animation ladder and reel idea I drew last week, and the logo I designed below…

To my surprise, both concepts, and the visuals with them, were liked by everyone. The end result from this meeting with regards to my work were that the character is an absolute must and that next week I should aim to create something new with the character (e.g. new logo design) or improve upon this existing character and add further detailing/change things. I must ensure that I do not do too much detailing as I like how simple it is, but perhaps a change in the size of particular objects like the reel could be changed. Additionally, I think I also want to redraw the reel wrapped around the character, as this becomes quite jagged at some points. Furthermore, another idea is to bend the title around, giving the logo a more circular feel, so this is something to look into as well.

I was also able to confirm the filming dates with Jolene today, which is really good as it shows I have been able to effectively communicate with my interviewee and figure out a logistical plan suiting both of us. The message to prove this can be seen below.

Upon messaging Jolene, I also thought about the logistics of filming with Erin. I would be having my interview with Erin over a computer as this is what we had both agreed upon would be the best decision. Therefore, this is another problem to think about – how will I capture my interview with Erin? I decided to try Zoom as this is a very popular video calling software that doesn’t even require participants to sign up, you can simply type in the meeting code and password. This code and password will be set up in preparation for the meeting, so that both of us can access the call at the date and time we set. I figured that it was important to test if Zoom allowed me to record the screen of the video call, as this is something I will for the content of the documentary; if I cant record the screen, I won’t have captured the video call. I used a classmates laptop and connected myself to a call I set up on my own laptop. I found the button at the bottom of the screen saying ‘record’ so I hit this. Upon ending the call, I got a notifications suggesting the video file had been saved to my storage. I opened the video, and I encountered an issue. The issue was that Zoom kept on automatically switching between the participants in the call. This was not ideal as I only wanted my interviewee to be recorded as I am not going to be a part of the documentary.

To overcome this problem, I ventured into the settings of Zoom and had a look if there was anything I could do in here before re-joining a call and problem solving there. I didn’t find anything that would solve the video issue, but I was able to find a setting which allowed me to gain 2 separate video files for each participant in the recording. This is great news because it means that my microphone will not be picked up at all, even if I make slight noises of agreement or happen to cough or sneeze in the background when they talk. I re-joined the call and looked for anything that would fix the issue. I was able to find a pin tool which allowed me to pin a participant – this pinned my classmates view on my laptop, which I was hoping also meant that this would be the only screen recorded. The video below shows what happened.

For the purpose of this test, please ignore the audio. This is because the laptops were close to each other and could hear one another's audio causing an echo. The point in the video, is that I was able to direct Zoom's recording to one specific participant, which is perfect and what I need.

That evening I also wrote up an email to my lecturer, leading on from a conversation I had with him earlier on in the day regarding Jolene’s enquiry to get a confirmation email from a lecturer. The email I wrote to my lecturer can be seen below.

Hi Nigel,

I spoke to you earlier about one of my interviewee’s wanting an email from yourself to prove that I am part of a college and that everything’s legit.

Her name is Jolene, she is 17, with misophonia, and her role within the documentary would be to give an interview discussing some questions which I have already sent to her and she is happy talking about. Furthermore, I have sent both consent forms, contributor and location, for her to view and she is happy with this too.

Her email is email here - you can email her directly through this.

Many thanks,

Jon

Wednesday

On Wednesday there were 3 main tasks I was able to complete that I would like to discuss. The first area of discussion is that I spoke with Jolene to send over the consent forms and also enquire upon something else too. The image below shows my conversation with her.

The conversation shows how I help Jolene with the problems/enquiry she had about the form I sent her. This shows my professionalism and communication skills with my contributors. You can also see that I asked about whether there would be the opportunity to gain some archive footage of her at festivals/concerts. This would be really beneficial to the production as it allows for more visual interest as she discusses it within the interview. Adding visual interest like this is important because I don’t only want my production to consist of interview shots. Luckily she responded positively and said she would find some videos for me which was great.

The second task I was able to achieve was speaking with my youngest brother who is playing the protagonist in scene 1. I spoke with him about the consent form as I understand that the language included within this form can be quite complicated to understand. I did this because of what I learnt within my research into working with young people – its important that they understand what they need to do without having a parent/guardian present in the room who might persuade/pressure them into saying ‘yes’ and that they do understand. The video below shows my conversation with Oliver (turn audio up to hear conversation).

Finally, the third task I was able to achieve was getting Eddie, Judith and Paul to also sign their consent forms. With Oliver’s consent form, I also had Judith sign it to confirm that she was happy with what Oliver had to do.

I am very happy with the logistical tasks I was able to achieve today as this will help me to move forward confidently knowing that everything is confirmed and in pace.

Thursday/Friday

For the remainder of the week, I continued with preproduction work to ensure that I was not falling behind on this. This was vital as I found myself, throughout the duration of the week, spending a lot of time communicating with contributors, and therefore spending less time on the actual preproduction work I have to do.

Despite saying this, I did have one quick conversation with Erin, where I ask her to confirm a date for us to have our interview. I asked whether the Friday in the first week of Easter would be good for her, with the additional mention that it is Good Friday. I think it was fair and respectful of me to add this information, as this is often a time when people are busy with family and commonly have the day off of work.

She came back saying that she would need to discuss this further, so for now I just have to wait on this confirmation.