Why mobile phone technologies provide solutions and empowerment.
When Duke Voyages Shipyard invited me to become involved in documenting their internship program and the experiences of their interns, it opened an opportunity for me as a filmmaker to try new ways to capture their journey.
After meeting with the CEO of DVS it became clear that to effectively fulfil the brief my approach to filming and interviewing would need to evolve to both effectively record the intern experience but not impact their internship or studies with excessive filming.
I decided to take an approach to evidence gathering that I had been using within community settings, where a camera set up on a tripod with a crew was too formulated and created unnessacry tension or anxiety, especially for students whose first language may not be English.
Using a mobile phone based solution both was easy to manage, quick to set up and review both for video and photos, and also was less intimidating for interns.
After initially meeting the interns and explaining my process it was time for our first set of photos and videos for both the companies website but also for promotional and marketing use to raise the profile and USP of the company and its mission to create carbon netural yachts.
Though using a mobile solution for both video and radio microphones for sound, the experience of being filmed and recorded was not as straightforward as imagined.
Being asked to review their experiences as the project went along brought challenges of scheduling, expectation, time needed to prepare answers to interview questions we had designed to best capture a flavour of their learning and practical hands on experience as an Intern.
I worked with two interns over the duration of the internships, one from an Architectural background and one from a Humanities degree.
The ability to create an atmosphere of collaboration helped immensely and the interns were encouraged to be involved in the editing process if they chose too.
Over the course of my time at UEL we produced 6 videos for the company, document the internship experience from start through to finish and even managed to attend the Career Zones first annual intern awards 2023 held at the Stratford UEL campus.
It was here during the event that one of our videos about the employer experience of being an intern was shown to a packed auditorium of students, staff and alumni.
Looking over the videos we produced you can watch them and immediately get a sense of both the student, their University experience and the benefit to them both personally and professionally from taking part in the UEL internship scheme. This means of data gathering is often over looked for a more quantitative methodology but I would argue that these visual texts can be equally as quantitative and help build a more holistically focus approach that encompasses and recognises both the journey and the travel they are both experiential and qualitative.
https://youtube.com/@tonyduke8074
The main Lesson we learned was that if you can make it a win-win for the intern to take part in the Media activities/filming/information gathering then it’s so much easier to get their buy in for the added commitment of having their journey filmed/photographed and documented.
As a company Having filmed material and photographic documentation of any project work is an under appreciated commodity that adds to any project evaluation, its also useful material for critical review and valuable content for the future and as an archive, that potentially is equally cultural, educational and has a future commercial value?
In thinking about creating your own media content for the company it may be less of commissioning in a costly outside production company but tweaking or using your employees current skill sets to better productivity.
It needn’t cost a lot either, just willing, a clear strategy and a desire to make change happen.
Therefore for new companies or those wanting to test the waters, there are many free training courses online to help companies understand how to go about creating mobile film and video content and building simple yet effective evidence gathering using filmed mobile phone content, it is not only a cost effective solution but benefits the company with up to date and immediate material for an audience to engage with and respond to.
More information:
Suggested resources/providers and bite sized free/low cost online mobile filmmaking courses, plus YouTube is a great source for inspiration and tutorials.
Content produced for Duke Voyagers Shipyard videos was acquired using Apple iPhones and edited in iMovie on a mobile phone both are capable of outputting snd creating broadcast and print friendly digital content.
Sound was recorded using Bluetooth generic wireless microphones for mobile phones costing under £25 and Adobe podcast a free app to enhance dialogue based recorded audio. The benefit of clean sound without interruptions or distractions that may lead viewers to switch channels can not be stressed enough, as more users will engage in mobile devices in a variety of situations it’s more vital that your content captures their curiosity.
https://www.screenskills.com/media/3580/top-tips-for-filming-with-a-phone.pdf
Edgar Wright | Filmmaking Online Course | BBC Maestro | BBC Maestro
https://collab.sundance.org/catalog/Mobile-Filmmaking-Presented-by-Xiaomi-On-Demand
https://www.movophoto.com/blogs/movo-photo-blog/mobile-filmmaking
Author Justin Aggett- https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-aggett-714123160