We adhered to our Ethics Charter, but it was difficult to not include Mary and Carli into the final edit especially when we’ve managed to condense and edit Carli’s story into a particular sequence.

Firstly, we had a few tech issues with the audio of the screen recordings (Skype connections), and the camera didn’t have enough storage to capture the entire 2 hours of both interviews. Secondly, hearing Mary’s story was so gut-wrenching and was something we attempted to edit down but there were times where it felt raw and wouldn’t do her any justice if we were to incorporated both her expertise as a psychologist and her personal experience within 2 different stories. If anything, she deserves to have her own separate short documentary.

Likewise, Carli’s recount of her experience had a completely different tone to Claire’s that she deserves to have her own short documentary. As we continued further into editing her sequence, the Skype connection during the interview distorted the audio and ultimately was of a much lower quality than Claire’s interview. It was far too much work for the remaining time we had in order to level the audio tracks and sync the audio with the footage, while also trying to figure out the appropriate order to weave their interviews into one concise piece.

Hopefully, one day we will have the opportunity to re-interview Carli and Mary as they all have the same intention of raising awareness about the real life experiences and the epidemic of cults in Australia.