Working with a living, breathing, human participant (AKA a real person) in comparison to a character portrayed by an actor was a new experience for me. Whilst I was excited to interview my friends I got somewhat frustrated when they didn’t follow the script I had in my head. haha. Creating a documentary has been an eye opening experience in that I see now that it is hard to plan what your film is going to look like before the interviews. What I thought I would get was something vastly different to what I actually received. I have learnt that you must be flexible because real people are unpredictable.

If I were to complete a similar project in the future I don’t know if I would change much. I will admit, I did take the easier route by interviewing friends. Perhaps if I talked to a stranger, my sentiment would be different. Boynton (2016) said ‘love the people that you film’. I couldn’t have hated them if I tried. I do agree that to investigate a part of someone’s life you must love what they do. I also agree that, for the most part, people deserve empathy and compassion… unless you’re making a documentary about Taylor Swift or Hitler.

Within my ethics charter I quoted another student, Lauren Smith (2023), ‘if the person really hates a certain part of the film strongly consider deleting/re-filming it’. Although I agree with this statement quite strongly, I have to be honest. The though of deleting or re-animating a part of my film pains me. Not because I’m very attached to all of it, just because each shot took so much time. However, if you are not willing to do this, you shouldn’t create documentaries in the first place. 

I so wisely said at the beginning of this course that we must ‘Avoid pressuring the person into saying anything they may not have said usually’ (Gould, 2023). whilst I did not force anyone to say anything outright, I may have manipulated some of the discussions towards the end. Im not sure if this is bad or not. And I’m not sure of the ethical standing it has. I do know that I would make a killer producer for a trashy reality show. you know, the people behind the camera who manipulate the contestants into saying what they want them to say?

To conclude, perhaps I am better off writing characters. They are much more predictable. however, what’s the point in school if you don’t try something new. Besides, I should probably save all my dialogue manipulating skills for channel 7… or maybe 9. Which ever broadcasts Survivor.