My participant is a young woman named Tayla. I met her several years ago when she started to look after my younger siblings, and we have been friends ever since. I decided to focus on her in this project brief, as I see her on the occasions that I am at my father’s house. Her days are chaotic, due to the demands of a five year old and two year old child that she looks after. I decided to capture a day in the life of her working life, as many people are under the impression that her form of working field is an easier working life, which is a major oversight, as this young woman incredible hours. The beginning of the participant may not include discussion for a significant amount of time in the piece, however, I have attempted to capture the peculiar demands of the job, and the repetitiveness that the job often entails. I consider this an insight to her everyday environment, which suits the brief of “24 hours on location”.
I feel that in this project brief, I have vastly improved. I am happier with my original recordings, as well as the content that I made in mind for the projecting briefing. However, I feel that I still have a lot to improve on in terms of the next project. There are some parts of the recording where I would have liked to improve on, such as the recording of the music box. I would also like to become more creative in the next project brief, and find sounds that vastly improve the story telling of the interview. Although I am happy with my interviewing skills, there were some moments where I took the microphone off the participant too quickly to ask a question, and verbally responded to the participant, instead of only nodding and smiling. I aim to improve this in the next project brief. The sounds of the music box are there to represent the repetitiveness of the field of work. To bring context of the music box, it was a favourite of one of the children at the time of the interview, and I thought that it represented the, at times, dullness of the environment. However, if I were to do this again, I would use a range of different and repetitive sounds to create this effect.
A major inspiration for this subject brief related to Sibohán McHugh’s piece, ‘Marrying Out.’ The way that she presented her information, interviews and research to an audience about the discrimination of Catholics and Protestants, along with the controversies when those of different Christian religions married, was inspiring. She created drama and insight though different forms of sound, from whispering to content from her interviews of those who experienced this discrimination in the mid 20th century.
Overall, although I am happy with my improvements, I feel that I still have a lot to improve on. But I do believe that I have achieved my goals in the weeks since the previous project brief.