When filming, it is important to consider the ethics in the production and how this may effect contributors. Bill Nichols (2017) rightly says, “Ethical considerations attempt to minimalize harmful effects.” Ensuring the production will not harm contributors, crew and anyone else associated is one of the key parts of being successful.
In our documentary following the ‘Southampton Witches’ we have ensured to not harm our contributors by ensuring they are completely happy and consent to everything included. Nichols (2017) said that documentaries “Stand for or represent the views of individuals, groups and institutions. They also convey impressions…tell stories…offer perspectives…to persuade us to accept their views.” Our aim in this documentary is to let our contributors tell and represent their story in an honest way, putting ourselves into the heart of the group. We do not want our personal views or impressions to be the main subject, so we used open questions in which some of their answers they told us were very raw, so they asked for us not to include it in the documentary but were happy to personally tell us.
We made sure to use language that would not offend our subjects when asking questions about who they are/what they do, and not twist a particular mis-representation on them which can often be associated. We found out what would be off limits and what is too personal to talk about by asking them what these would be, for example any “spells” or “healing” they are doing as part of their craft.
Our contributors do not have public personas, only within their own community of ‘Southampton Witches’ are they mostly well-known. They have normal, working-class jobs so their careers are unlikely to be effected, also as they are open with their employers about their beliefs. Also, they told us they have been approached by other filmmakers for documentaries before and have participated, therefore they were already aware of what happens, and knew how to act as a contributor.
Below is our Ethical Audit:
BILL NICHOLS., 2017. Introduction to Documentary, Third Edition. Third edition. ed. US: Indiana University Press.
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