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...!