wednesday & thursday

day three of the workshop

a day of interviews and putting together rough animatics on a timeline at eesi. from more humble beginnings as a blog, the project has evolved into an actual documentary - we've recorded two days' worth of interviews, with teachers from Lycée Charles Coulomb, including Emmanuelle, Pascal, and Sophie, as well as students. Emmanuelle's English class was enthusiastic, with two British students (having to take the class as a requirement) leading the English-speaking charge. At lunch in the cantina, the students were able to talk one-on-one and were quite engaged.

at this stage, we have a good amount of interview footage, with some missing pieces/characters to capture tomorrow. at the moment, we're waiting for Claire so we can head back to the ranch and James can cook salmon (yay!).

Min/Lemon made a very successful chinese dish yesterday.

as far as the workshop content is going, we have two main themes: the nature of the critique and evaluation methods, and the relationship between students and teachers.

james and adèle are treating the theme of critique/evaluation. the challenge, given our goal of creating coherent animatic sequences by, erm, tomorrow, is to sift through all of our interview footage and make a "story." In this case, the narrative starts with provocation: the american/french system is great/awful as articulated by proponents and critics on both sides.

of course, the initial challenge is to elicit answers that aren't simply "politically correct," or overly relativist. naturally, most people are conscious of the fact of being recorded, and, for any variety of reasons, choose to steer clear of statements that could implicate them or label them as unfair, xenophobic, or clueless. but nonetheless, the unconscious does at moments manage to bubble to the surface, and the beginnings of an interesting narrative arc start to draw themselves in. in this case, the notion that critics and evaluation of students by teachers ultimately depends on the individuals involved more than anything else needs tension to make it exciting, so we're starting with views that are more black and white.