I believe that as an independent media practitioner, the first and most important thing is to have your own independent believes and values, do your best to record the reality. My perspective is media is not only belongs to us, but more belongs to the whole society. I should be able to do justice, speak for the people, speak for the underprivileged and explain some issues in a factual and realistic manner. A good media practitioner should have his own thoughts and pursuits, otherwise he will not be able to create good works that are thoughtful, deep and insightful.

A great deal of preparation went into making this documentary in order to be able to fully document Rachel’s daily life while conveying exactly what I wanted to convey to the audience. I framed each shot at least at four different angles and distances so that I could subsequently edit them together smoothly. This was a very good way to do it, even if some of the shots in the concentration didn’t make me feel very happy, I could just take the bits that I was happy with and edit them. The next part was the interview, which didn’t go well for the first time due to inexperience and time constraints. So after a meeting with Rohan I decided to do a second interview. Before the second interview I summarized the reasons for the failure of the first interview and outlined what I thought would solve the problem. After talking to the interviewee, the second interview was conducted. I focused on the lighting and camera placement in the environment, as well as the microphone. I tried my best to put every detail that followed the criteria for a good interview that Rohan had mentioned in the class. All in all, I think my second interview was successful in that I guided the interviewee correctly when she was having difficulties and made her express her thoughts fluently. I think another thing I need to be aware of when I am faced with similar creative work in the future is to try not to sit behind the camera. This will give the audience the illusion that she is looking at the camera, which will make them focus on the interviewee’s facial expressions and not on what she is saying. I should place the camera a step or two away from me so that the interviewee’s eyes are slightly off the camera.

Overall I think this is a good start to my career as a media practitioner and I can keep going in this direction gradually improved my weakness.

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