When I was initially paired with Tommy the topic he was fairly adamant on making his documentary on was Scottish Independence. However from the outset I was very clear with Tommy I didn’t feel comfortable that we would have been able to achieve a documentary of a high standard on this topic as his initial ideas weren’t well planned out. We had multiple discussions prior to being paired together about Tommy’s originally documentary idea of Scottish Independence so I was fully aware how passionate he was about it. However on the opening day of being paired I made my feelings clear that I wasn’t comfortable with this independence as I didn’t see a specific angle, so we started to think of other ideas and later in the evening Tommy came up with what I believed to be the much more realistic documentary idea. A documentary based around two teachers in the Gaelic department at Greenfaulds High School.
This collaboration was a massive learning curve for me, as in previous projects when I had an opinion I hadn’t always been confident enough to air that opinion but when working with Tommy who I knew would understand and not be offended by my thoughts, it showed how being open and transparent with my thoughts and feelings are able to bring change in a positive way instead of simply sulking and not voicing my thoughts. In the future I’ll never hesitate to voice my opinion during group projects and this is a vital learning experience brought about in the very early stages of this production. It also gives me so much more confidence for the project as whole as I now understand that my thoughts will also be taken into consideration by my partner. Tommy also voiced his thoughts on if he was going to make a documentary on a high school department he wanted the filming including for the interviews to be entirely handheld. He recommend as I was unsure about this I watch a French documentary Erte et Avoir ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S49qvE86Qs0 – last accessed 16th November) . Watching sections from this documentary gave me a much clearly imagine of the natural and flowing style was trying to achieve by leaving the tripod at home however I still believe the tripod is a handy piece of equipment to be brought along.
Se Gaidhlig no Gaelic 