The Interview with Stuart was a disappointment. I blame the lack of skittles and a presumed character that the real person could not fit. Rather than work for the stall as I’d believed, Stuart works for himself; he’s the sole distributor of an international brand of energy drinks, neither of which contain the same list of ingredients as their international counter-parts. He’s the same well spoken, charismatic man I’d seen in the market, however, and with the right treatment there is a lot of potential in his story; both in the way he tells it and the way it tells him. I think we can make something interesting out of the way he floats through life, pivoting from interest to interest while maintaining a drive to succeed. We could also talk about how he met his wife, how they grew together and how they came to share philosophies. Or we could talk on his business, and how he hopes to grow it over the next few years.

Regrettably, however, none of the above meet the brief. There is no ‘place’ for him; he’s a mobile person by necessity and he doesn’t really tie into the market. As cool as it would be to follow him, with Rohans advice I have dropped him as a subject. The day after the interview with stuart I went with Jenny and Even to the market to approach the elderly man they had seen previously. The guy was absolutely adorable, and seemed open to filming and being interviewed, so we politely let him know that we would return with the full crew and set up a proper time frame. Mr Huang, as we found out his name was, speaks only cantonese and mandarin. So it only makes sense that Jenny or Even takes lead on any future correspondence with him.

We sorted into groups, and I decided to go with Jenny and Even. Joining us were Lydia and Denise (two mandarin speakers) and Meg. This gives the group a comical level of versatility; it’s almost impossible for us to split up so as to not have a mandarin speaker in the group. On top of this we have a good mid-level range of skills between us; seeing as we’re all starting at the same level there is almost no reason for us to not be able to assist each other.

Me and Meg went to the market to try and get some nice morning observational footage; getting there at the ripe early time of 5:30 (again) I began to get some shots, and had been set up for maybe 4 minutes before the security guard I had been interested in came up and informed me that I wasn’t able to film without a permit. Being the strong, independant person I was I puffed out my chest, stood my ground, and packed up my gear cause that was too much, man.

At around 6 Meg showed up, and we went to talk to the supervisor on site, who agreed to let us film for the rest of the morning, but if we wanted to return we had to bring a proper permit. This result was only really possible through Megs fantastic interpersonal skills. We got some good footage of the stall setting up, but I had not checked to see how high the gain was set, and the result was footage with more grain than a plain in ukraine.

Week 3