Saturday 12 April 2014
After corresponding with Darren and Emlyn, i managed to arrange another visit to these sites to further scout the locations and do a Recce, but also to visit the stonemasons at work, and see if we could find/cast some contributors to interview for our documentary.
During the visit to the apprentice workshop and the stone yard, i spoke with everybody whom was present at the locations, asking some basic questions that i had prepared in advance, to see how the contributors responded to these questions, because based on their response, it would enable me to decide whom is a good, confident speaker, and whom is not too keen.
So that i could gather valuable information from the visit to these two sites; to help me listen out for potential contributors, and also further plan for the documentary, i took my phone and hands free kit with me, using the hands free kit as an audio recorder so that i could record the conversations that i had with the stonemasons. I done this so that i could later listen back to these audio recordings, and see how the stonemasons responded to the questions i'd asked them, to help me decided if whether or not they'd be a good contributor to interview for the documentary, and if so, how they answered these draft questions, and how i could then rephrase/restructure these questions to get a better answer from them during a proper interview.
These were some of the questions that i asked. When i asked them these questions they weren't direct, it was asked to them in a general conversation manner, so that they felt comfortable and not too under pressure, so that i could receive a natural answer from them and not a forced one.
Here is one of the conversation from the audio recordings
Sorry for my appalling interview skills haha
From the visit to the two sites, and from the questions asked to the stonemasons, i managed to find our potential contributors, whom, after discussion with them, were happy to be interviewed for the documentary,
The contributors whom we've got is:
Steve Manual - Apprentice Master
Morella McGee - A Young lady whom is a second year apprentice Stonemason
Scott Wiseman - A young guy whom is a second year apprentice Stonemason
This is the Stonemasons and a member of the cathedral upholstery staff playing a game called Declaration whist during their lunch break
Overall i'm happy with the outcome that has been achieved as result of these visits, as the contributors we've got for the documentary besides being cheerful, genuine people with good characteristics, they're also a diverse cast; not only have we gotten young and mature contributors, but also we have a female contributor as well, plus we have a contributor whom has been through the apprentice program himself and is now the manager of the program he'd once undergone. On top of this, we've found out further information what happens within the workshop and around the various sites, and how stonemasons are with each other "one big happy family", and what they get up to during lunch time, and how they feel about one another, and about the work that they're doing.
So now from all of this research, i'm going to use it to form better questions to ask them during the interview, and also to schedule our locations to film for this coming week (14th - 18th april 2014) as the week after that the stonemasons are going to be away for 11 days.
