Production Log: Research Follow-Up

Research Follow-up: First, reflect on the plan you made for your last entry. Was it the most effective way to go about collecting information? What could have been done better? What assumptions did you make when creating your research plan? What additional steps could be taken to generate a more comprehensive understanding of the subject? Second, suggest three specific people you think should be in the documentary (this may require additional research). Make sure you give good reasons. (Are they particularly knowledgeable about, or personally affected by, the subject? Might they confound the viewer’s expectations and help us to rethink the subject? Etc.)

I think that the most effective way to go about this documentary would be through interviews. Interviews, while they do not take too long, are able to delve sufficiently deep enough into a topic, and allow for the display of many points of view. If we were to interview two to three people from every 'main' stereotype (i.e. 'geek', 'jock', 'loner', etc.), each person being from a differnet sect of that group (for example, 'band geek' versus 'computer nerd', etc.), we would have a very wide range of people, opinions, and lifestyles. Interviews would allow us to find out how different the social groupings are, how ethnicity ties into it, and how different social groups / ethnicities within Punahou feel about each other.

More difficult to decide, however, is how to orchestrate these interviews. They need to be organized and coherent (two things that most high school students are not, unfortunately). One suggestion made in class is that we interview a person from every hang-out spot. Another idea was to go by class, from Freshmen to Seniors. While I agree that hang-out spots and seniority should be covered in the documentary, neither is the necessarily the easiest most efficient way to go about the documentary. As I mentioned in the above paragraph, we might want to do it by stereotype: interview people who are 'known' to be geeky, into sports, etc., or simply people who are in those groups and feel passionate about them. We could then delve into issues dealing with who hangs out with who and where, and how interests / ethnicity / seniority ties into that. Interviewing teachers is also a good way of getting information-- teachers, obviously, know a lot about their students, and many have seen generations of them go by. Deans, counselors, parents, and teachers could provide insights that we, as students, may not be able to see.

As for who specifically should be interviewed... for interviewing students, I think it is a bit too early to decide. As for teachers and other adults, I think that about one Dean for each high school class should be interviewed, as well as an assortment of teachers (one from the Psychology department would be especially good). Parents of different ethnicities and cultures would be another interesting set of contrasts, as would parents of freshmen versus parents of seniors. So, more specifically, here is a list of people I think should be interviewed:

-Dr. Fletcher and / or Dean Herzer
-Rick Tune or another prominent member of the Psychology department
-Dr. Conway
-an assortment of parents, teachers, and Deans from other classes