(1) Class Discussions

In this week, on the Participatory mode reading part, the questions were inspired me. Since Charlotte posted out, it magnified my feeling, especially on the feeling of the subject’s sense of manipulating. Because I have had the experience of being an interviewee, and when I describe the experience painfully, I wonder what I am doing all this for, while I am suffering. Thanks to the director’s trust and encouraging to me keep speaking, but at the same time, I have a feeling of being manipulated. This feeling is very contradictory and distortion. So now, as an interviewer, I think I should stick to a professional attitude and encourage the interviewees to tell their experiences, but I’m also struggling with the pain to others. Is it against my initial to present the REAL? Therefore, the interesting question is: To what extent and when should I make a concession or keep asking?

(2) Film Reflection

“Taken at Birth” is a documentary of the classical term of the Participatory mode. And I watched it two days ago. The stuff, also the interviewer, was helping the subject to find out the truth of who their biological parents are. Since the same doctor has sold the babies from around the 1950s to the 1960s, they have never discovered their biological parents. The subject lived for decades and becomes like a detective, helping more than two hundred people with the same experience as her to find their biological parents.

(3) Documentary Sketch

The participatory mode is so much different from the last two. And it’s a bit like an interview. But the difference is we will involve in. So there will be no extra work at shooting, we are focusing on people and people. This time we even we have to-do list at shooting, rather than using different angle at shooting the stuff. Moreover, because we are in the special pandemic period, most of our friends are back in their homes, so we bully decided to interview them online. Therefore, the special modes which reflect our international identity are highlighted out. The film became a representative product of the times.

Documentary Sketch link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XgZyImRBSB4cg1zlXOSMtBq-fMLjt_7A/view?usp=drivesdk