thanks

Many thanks to Dom and Joe for doing the presentation this afternoon. I felt it went well, the idea was original, people were interested and we did'nt get too much flak! What did you all think? Did you stay for the remaining presentations? I'd like to hear about them if anyone has the time to write. Thanks, Angela

A few More Thoughts

I was reflecting on this project and thinking back to our initial meeting where our general impressions of the Farnham area were fairly uninspiring. A quaint country town, sleepy, middle class and fairly affluent overall. Inevitably, there were other aspects that were evident in the Farnham Herald. A mixture of knife attack, robberies, assaults and car crimes reported to illustrate that normal life continues behind the "nice" image. The property pages also give a good indication of the social mix with glossy picture of many £million plus houses available.

The idea to scratch a little below the surface and try to look at the attitudes and beliefs of the local people was an exciting way to respond to our first impressions. As a scientific experiment i am sure that there was much more we could do to test our hypohesis - more speciffic questions, ensuring the sample involved no bias, more interviews at different times of the day and difernt locations in the town etc. However, the objective of the project was not to prove the results of the research but to show that we had used our inital research to help us to come up with a creative and interesting angle and carried it through.

I feel that the results we achieved had a positive effect on the group, in that on the surface, the students are well acceped in the local community - something we had not felt at the outset. Furthermore ,there did not appear to be any obvious evidence of a racial nature, more a communication and confidence matter.

My Response...

I think the interviewing process was a really interesting experience on the whole. I operated the camera for each interview apart from my own and was able to see the reactions that each interviewer was getting. I think that we did really well to get so many willing and interesting people to speak to us though, equally so, we had just as many turning us down!

In terms of my own observations on the interviews, one of things that I found most difficult was to not intervene and help out during other's interviews - I am confident that I didn't to any extent but I was aware that there were times when the interviewee would look at me for some sort of comment or encouragement but the main point that I kept thinking was that the interview should belong to the person asking the questions, in order for us to get as much information as possible about the interviewee's experience of the exchange with the interviewer. The other observation that I made was that I believe that, of those people who refused an interview, they were genuinely in a hurry, or didn't want to appear on camera rather than having any significant personal objections to being interviewed.

One of the positive outcomes that I feel the group got from the film is an increased confidence and awareness of the people around us. There are many reasons as to why we may lack confidence; be it shyness, difficulty in communicating or just general self confidence but I found it really encouraging to hear Sam and Ingeun, in particular, say that they enjoyed the experience and found people to be more friendly than they may look.

Ultimately there are so many considerations that we could take into account to judge the effectiveness of the experiment but I think that, on the whole, it was really effective in encouraging us to engage with the town in which we are studying and get a sense of the people that we see everyday.

- I think that, on the whole, our impressions of Farnham have improved and we are more aware of what the people are like. Interestingly, despite minimal editing in an effort to present the raw and unabridged footage, we have ended up with a piece which presents many of it's own quirks and observations. In minimising our influence over what was added or subtracted to the final piece, we have been able to leave in the sights, sounds and atmosphere of Farnham.

All we have to do now is present...!

After interviewing

When our group made the decision to do interview with some local people on the street, frankly speaking, I was not sure what we could possible derive from them. However, bring a video camera and being an interviewer would be absolutely thrilling, so I was quite happy to attempt our new approach. Eventually, I succeeded in interviewing one elderly man waiting for his wife on the high street. Although it did not take long, I could feel that he was tolerant of speaking to me. I wish I had more chance to talk. Anyway, it was fine achievement for me not only collaborative research, but also interview with English people.

Thoughts on Video

Following our group meeting on analysing the footage collected... watching it from my point of view i found most of the interviews entertaining, especially the 'lady on the move' as she had strong views about pointless coffee shops needing to be replaced by 'proper shops'. Sorry i couldn't help out with this again my fellow New Yorkians. The whole lectures for me starting a week or two early has messed up my participation and contribution to the work.