02
Our Methods
Interviews
We conducted interviews with two members of the Queen's Film Production Club.
The first is Mackenzie Parrot, a president of the club. She is a 4th year Stage and Screen Student at Queen's University. Mackenzie also provided us with photos and videos from/about the workshop.
The second is Peter O'Donnell who is a 4th year member of the club.
We conducted a video interview with Mackenzie originally. However, during the time we acquired a second interview with a member, the club was not having any weekly meetings. We then had to conduct an email interview with Peter.
​
Because We wanted to represent an unbiased opinion between the president, the member, and our own experiences as film students not involved in the club, we decided to stick to the lowest common denominator for our methods.
​
Luckily for us, Mackenzie also wrote down her answers to the questions we asked her, so the natural conclusion was to present our interviews all in text format to reach our goal of having no bias. If Mackenzie's interview was presented in video form, but Peter's interview was only text, it may seem as though we - the researchers - may favor Mackenzie's point of view, which is not the case.
​
​
Photovoice is a process by which people can identify, represent, and enhance their community through a specific photographic technique.
We asked for Mackenzie to take/send us videos of the club to help in our research. In doing this, photovoice should provide Mackenzie's point of view in the research. Furthermore, by participating in this way, Mackenzie gains many advantages. She enables a perception of QFPC's world that are different to the actual courses Queen's University offers. Moments and ideas not available to the researchers become available. In this instance, it is the archiving of past videos shared with us that give us a perspective of the club when we could not study it, or when we could not attend meetings presently. It also provides a way to reaffirm the program goals. In interviewing Mackenzie, we found out the goals of the club, and Mackenzie's own personal goals for the future of the club. By participating in our research, Mackenzie may be able to push towards her goals even further. Photovoice also depicts the needs and assets of the community. Such as the need for more equipment, but also the fact that the club can be a resource for equipment when the department's equipment room is overbooked.
​
The videos provided by the club also give insight into how the club functions. For example, the cinematography workshop not only shows how the club acquires a professional cinematographer to teach, but the video allows the teaching itself to be seen; how cinematography is taught. Furthermore, the videovoice aspect of comparing club members taking on a cinematography task versus the professional doing the same task can give new insights: how hard it is to learn certain aspects of film-making, how a film-maker comes up with an idea and moves on to produce that idea, or the realization that a workshop like this one is needed as some things are more challenging than others in film.
​
Overall through interview and photo/video voice, the benefits and functions of the Queen's Film Production Club can be compared to the experiences of students in the film department taking film courses. Key differences and similarities can be extrapolated and a conclusion can be decided as to whether QFPC is beneficial. As researchers who fit the description of that comparison, we use our own knowledge. Although this may seem biased to some degree, it is important in this case to explore our own experiences since we ourselves are trying to benefit from the research question.