The project management consisted of the steps needed to complete this project. This relates to planning schedules, supplying relevant ethics forms to the participants and acquiring equipment when filming commenced. The organisation and preparation of smaller and larger tasks, within the project, helped achieve numerous objectives within the allotted time period.
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Time Schedule
The time schedule helped order my time most effectively from the months of September to May. The project was structured around certain timed milestones throughout, such as the hand in of the report, the project review stages and the final project submission date. Detailing specific dates also assisted in keeping the project on track and allowed time to be prioritised where it was needed, within specific months.
Proposal Form
The project proposal form was the first stage of the process that was completed. The project question and the intentions for the practice were outlined within a document for my supervisor to review and hopefully approve. This document equally involved more critical questions, such as if participants were vulnerable and how they would be incorporated. As the deadline for this document was in October, I had to plan and organise the objectives behind my question in a concise manner. The time schedule shown above was an attachment to this document.
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Ethics Form
The ethics/consent form was given to all participants involved in the methodology for the written report and those involved in the filming project. It provided details surrounding the background of the project, confidentiality and anonymity, and the role of the participant. A continuous effort was made to make sure consent was obtained and to guarantee that subjects understood their part within the project and the right to withdraw if they so choose. The ethics forms were all distributed and signed via email, from January to March.
In keeping with the ethics form, the Youtube videos showcased on this site are unlisted and so are not available for anyone on that platform to publicly view without a link.
Below are extracts from the ‘participant information sheet’.
This project intends to investigate how watching old home movie footage instils a sense of shared nostalgia. The home movie footage explored would have been captured by amateur videographers, primarily on a digital video recorder/ camcorder and filmed on cassettes. The particular focus will be identifying the signifiers or symbols attached to feeling nostalgia, through watching home movie footage, i.e. attire, objects or mannerisms. The idea of ‘shared nostalgia’ will be explored through participants responses to watching or reflecting on old home movies and if their experience of nostalgia is linked or connected, to each other, through the symbols they mention.
Involvement in this project will be to either answer survey questions or to feature in video responses, while watching old home movies of yourself or others. This could apply to being filmed for a short duration for the methodology or for a longer duration for the video project. Survey participants will be asked to answer a series of questions relating to their engagement with old home movies and how they could or have responded to them. Video response participants will be asked to watch old home movie footage of themselves or family/friends that they know, to see how they respond to the material given. Except for discussing with the participant, at the start of the filming that they can discuss what they see or related memories, I will not ask questions or prompt responses during the filming. This is as I intend to capture raw and genuine results, without disruption.
All data gathered/ produced during the research for this project will be kept in an electronic format and stored securely on a password-protected device. This data will only be accessed by myself and my supervisor. Survey Data will be collected via SurveyMonkey. They enforce general data protection regulations, ensuring that data collected on the app will not be shared without permission from the survey creator. Some of the information you provide may be used to make a final project output, which will be submitted for final year undergraduate assessment and may subsequently be available for public viewing at the University of Greenwich exhibition and elsewhere, including online. Following completion of the project output, any remaining data stored for the project will be destroyed by 31 July 2021.
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Acquiring Participants
The participants involved in the project were either direct family, friends or well-known individuals. These subjects had to have owned home movies of themselves or were involved in other’s home movies. In many instances, potential participants did not own home movies or could not develop their cassettes or videos, due to Covid-19 causing the closing of non-essential shops. In the final project, the participants ranged in age, gender and their relationship to one another, which favourably factored into the responses that were given.
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Equipment
The equipment used for the project was a boom kit, a Canon 700d and a Zoom H4n Recorder. As this equipment was borrowed from the University, I had limited knowledge of how to operate it. Although, I adjusted to the situation. Prior to this, the methodology responses and the crits videos were filmed on a Canon 100d camera and the iPhone voice memos app was used to record audio. The quality was low, as this equipment is not used for filming, however it still helped communicate what was intended.
Alongside booking the equipment, a risk assessment form had to be filled out, concerning the shooting location and safety of the equipment. A challenging aspect within this process was scheduling the collection of the equipment for a suitable week that all the participants were available.
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Filming Schedule
For the final project, six participants were acquired and thus the third week of April was scheduled to start filming. Firstly, everyone’s availability for this week was checked and then organised so each time fit around people’s work schedule, school pick-up or prior engagements. There was no more than two filming sessions scheduled in a day and they did not last longer than an hour. I also had to ensure that during each session a Covid safe environment was being maintained. The filming schedule had to factor into the decision to only book out equipment for a week, as I felt that filming in five days was an achievable goal and offered a level of continuity.
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Location
The project was filmed in a small spare room in my home. This was the sole filming location, as the focus is intended to remain on the participants and all that is needed of the location is a plain background, so the home movies can successfully be projected in post-production. Prior to filming, I had to plan for the room to be emptied of all moveable furniture to create a clear space, as well as bringing in a television and DVD player, so the participants could view the home movies that they were responding to. Although I would have previously liked to film in a studio, the Covid restriction made it impossible for the participants to travel to London to use the University facilities.
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Continuity
During filming, the intention was to keep continuity in aspects throughout. This included planning and marking the positions of the chairs and tripod, as well as the second and third tripod set up. This made it easier during filming, as the ideal camera angles were already marked and the backdrop was always in view, for post-production purposes. When editing this equally created a smoother transition, as there was not an overwhelming amount of different camera angles.
Furthermore, all filming was shot during daylight to give additional light sources, as no external light equipment was available and the only artificial light was from the ceiling bulbs. To aid the scheduling of the filming sessions, significant timings were listed within each participant’s home movies that I felt would create the best responses, therefore time would not be wasted on unrelated footage. These small measures created a more straightforward filming experience and additionally helped when editing.
Homecoming Ache 