Monday 29 February 2016

Interview Day

So on Thursday we conducted our interviews at Bournemouth and Poole College.
We arrived a little nervous with our camera equipment and walked into a session with roughly 15 people sitting down looking at power points on the LGBT community, we listened for a while to their educational and supportive session.

We chose a room that was quiet, un-intrusive and private to do our interviews, as naturally they are of a sensitive nature. It was also after college hours so there was not that many people about the building.

We first interviewed Alfie from Space programme, the interview lasted about 15 minutes, and we clapped before each recording to make the syncing of our content easier. We placed our subjects sat down, looking directly into the camera, as sort of like a confessional. We asked our interviewees if they would like all 5 of us in the room whilst they were giving their answers, a few people decided that the fewer of us the better. We hope this made them feel as comfortable as possible.

What we were surprised by was how KEEN, ENTHUSIASTIC AND UNAFRAID the young people were to be interviewed. As honestly, we were worried that nobody would want to come forward and tell us their story - let alone be filmed. But in the end, we were overwhelmed by how many people wanted to be filmed. We actually had to cut the stream of people off!

Unfortunately, we had a problem with one of our team members who 'mis-pronouned' one of the participants. (Called a non-binary person, a 'she' by accident) It was a very tricky and new situation for the majority of us and slips of the tongue were exceedingly hard to avoid.

We also had a problem with the Tascam and it took us a while to get used to the new format of recording equipment, but we mastered it in just enough time. Another thing that wasn't idea was the camera running out of battery half way through one of our very emotive interviews with Jay, the volunteer at the Space programme - but luckily we had pre-empted this and put another spare battery on charge in the corner.

Overall it was an incredible experience, and I think we would all admit that it was an emotional experience, and it widen our views on the topic of being transgender. It was an enlightening journey and something we will never forget; which we hope to reflect in our interactive documentary. In addition, most of us didn't realise there was a term called Non-Binary! Which is where a person doesn't identify with any gender whatsoever.

Space, also wanted us to show them the finished product and were very keen to help us get parental consent for all our participants.

Transgender Flag



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