Sunday the 14th of August – Shoot Day 1

Camberwell Markets 

6AM Sunday

The approach to Sunday was to line up the participants and record a conversation with each person at a time convenient to them. We started shooting at 7am and ran until 12pm just before the markets closed. The time with each participant was a lot shorted than I anticipated. I left room for 40 mins to an hour with each person but the surroundings didn’t really allow for that kind of time and we found we were wasting quite a lot of card space holding the shot while the participant attended to customers. We managed to record as much of the transaction and bartering process as possible but I don’t find much of that very interesting, I would prefer the participant to be talking about an item he is passionate about and knows the history too. I found Barry, who was the real deal. He knew all about the history of his gramophones and it was really engaging watching him talk about them with such love and passion.

How did I conduct the conversations?

I made it specific about what they were interested in, the stall owners. Rather than what I wanted to know, I wanted them to talk about what they were interested in.

It seemed that the participants were more engaged talking about the objects and items that they were passionate about on their stall tables. I felt like they got a bit self conscious talking too much about their personal lives. The questions became “what’s your favourite thing here today, where did you find it, is there a story behind it, what do you love about it, who is buying these kinds of collectables (whatever the item was)”. Also I felt like once they began handling and talking about the item, the conversation shifted into more of a participatory activity where the participant was actively engaging in a show and tell of some kind. It was less “hi i’m a filmmaker tell me personal details of your life” and moved towards a conversation about an item or are of interest that they were passionate about. It gave the conversation a more interesting element. Also I have to take in mind that the location, the market place itself, is noisy, the participants are putting up a showman person to their customers in order to gain interest and sell items. So it’s not really set up for quiet, personal interviews where the participant lets down their guard and reveals something quite intimate.

Overall it was a successful day, the footage is shaky but looks beautiful. And there are great moments of engagement and conversation.