At the group there were about 20-30 women and we managed to speak to nearly all of them - but of those only one or two showed an interest in being a part of the film, and one of the women does not want to be filmed. Jamie had tried to speak to his Grandparents' friends in the morning regarding their potential contribution to the film, but of the two who seemed promising one is now seriously ill and the other was absent at the time he had arranged to meet.
Before this meeting we had talked as a group about our approach to potential contributors. We had talked about how to put across our project clearly to avoid any confusion and to try and discern from the first meeting whether people would have photographs which they could share with us and, most importantly, would be comfortable being filmed. Despite this it was still difficult to keep focused on memories attached to photographs and to find people willing to talk to us when we mentioned recording.
I managed to make contact with a couple at the meeting, Mr and Mrs Battersby, and get a phone number from them as they said they'd be willing to talk to us if they could find photos at home that were appropriate. At the weekend I will try and contact the people who have still expressed an interest to follow up perhaps with a meeting or filming the next week - these people being Ralph and Bob from the Lowedges Group and the couple I met today.
With our enthusiasm for the project and the potential shown by our poetic piece, its disheartening and frustrating to not be able to find contributors for the film. Tomorrow we have a meeting with our last group, the Hawthorn Corner Senior Citizens group, which will hopefully yield some potential contributors for us. If we are in the same situation by the weekend then we will have to re-group and re-think our strategy or potentially our approach in the film. We will have to decide then whether or not to contact more groups for over the next couple of weeks or try and access new groups of people, as the other groups may just have the same result.
One option may be to post our film idea on the Facebook pages 'People of Sheffield Old and New' and 'Places of Sheffield Old and New' (which we were only told about today by a member of the senior group), both of which have large followings and regularly have old photographs posted online sharing memories. As very much a last resort we could use the interviews I took from my grandparents which we haven't used, and maybe construct the film using only sound and photographs if this is what convinces contributors to want to talk with us.
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