The aim of our documentary is to get personal accounts to suit “A climate of hope and fear”. We want to interact with our contributors and ask them questions we want answered to suit our brief, rather than just following them, as this may not emphasise what the brief wants.
We decided that the best way to film our subjects would be “Participatory”. Bill Nichols (2017), who created the categories for the 6 modes of documentary, says “Questions turn into interviews or conversations; involvement grows into a pattern of collaboration…” This was true for us when we met one of our contributors for the first time, we did not go to film or capture any audio. Instead, we hoped to get to know him, ask questions to get a feel about what would and wouldn’t be talked about as we were getting access into a closed group, it was our responsibility to represent them to other people “…what we see is what we can see only when a camera, or filmmaker, is there instead of ourselves” (Nichols, 2017). We also went to converse about general aspects as well as letting him know what we wanted to get out of the documentary.
We have no intention of having a clear sit-down interview where we film us asking, them answering as we wanted to break away from stereotypical documentary conventions. We want to ask open questions where the contributors can talk and move onto other subjects so they do not feel stuck to subjects only we ask for, so we can get honest and authentic answers. “Filmmakers who seek to represent their own direct encounter with their surrounding world and those who seek to represent broad social issues…through interviews and compilation footage constitute two large components of the participatory mode.” (Nichols, 2017) This quote resonates with us as this documentary is being made to represent both our surroundings in Southampton as the witches are from around this area, and to represent social issues such as prejudice, stereotypes and misrepresentation of people outside of the ‘social norm’.
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