Liz is the second of our four main contributors and lives in the beautiful village of Brookwood, near woking surrey. We decided to book in two days of filming, and stayed at a friends nearby over night.
Liz suffers with the most severe type of bipolar, bipolar 1, which can often be confused with schizophrenia, due to paranoia, psychosis,
hallucinations and hearing voices.
My main responsibility was to schedule the day, direct us to her house, lead all interviews/ conversations and make her feel as comfortable as possible.
We left early to get round the M25, and arrived there about 10 am. Liz was very welcoming, and because of our phone conversation and emails, I felt like we had already met. Whilst Lauren was recording her establishing and cutaway shots, myself and Liz got to know each other over a cup of tea.
I went through my outline for the day, and discussed the style of interview I was looking for. At this point I made sure she filled out the consent form.
On our arrival Liz told us that her husband would be taking the following day off to participate in filming, and would like to participate by being interviewed. Although we briefly mentioned this through emails, I had no confirmation that Nick wanted to be involved. Therefore I felt slightly unease that I would be interviewing him without much research. However I quickly realised that a whole day before with Liz was all the research I needed, and so during the first day I made notes of the sorts of things I would like to ask her husband.
The first day went really well, we all got along great.
Liz very kindly made us lunch after Lauren had filmed her sequences. We then went for a lovely walk around her village, she introduced us to many people along the way, neighbours, friends, ex colleagues etc. All appeared in her story. This was a good opportunity for Lauren to film some beautiful nature shots that will be the main key to Liz's narrative, as she loves to walk and be at one with the world around her.
After our tour around Brookwood I conducted the main interview. Liz was confident and articulate, I was transfixed by her words, her advice and heart felt sincerity. There was one moment where Liz was overcome with emotion, and needed to take few minutes to allow herself to cry. I felt myself and Lauren dealt with this maturely and sensitively. It was hard to realise I had made Liz cry and put her back amongst her nightmares, but I had to keep reminding myself I was doing this for a greater cause.
Sound was also my responisbity, and I now think I am getting the hang of checking we are recording sound, listening to the recording, adjusting levels etc, all the while listneing intently to the subject and not allowing them to notice my distraction with recording. It's all about multitasking.
The second day was even more relaxed, but I needed to keep pushing the shoot forward to make sure we got what we needed.
Nick's interview was significantly harder. It took him a little longer to become comfortable, open and relax. To begin with there were very short one word answers. I put this down to the fact Liz had thrown him in at the deep end, and hadn't allowed us the opportunity to speak with hime before hand. Nick was also a lot more emotional then Liz, and broke down on a number of occasions. This was particularly hard for me, as I could feel his pain and knew exactly what he had gone through, as I had gone through it too.
I managed to keep my composure, but I learnt today how difficult it can be to do a subject that is so close to your heart, especially if there is still pain there, but I know the reasons why I am doing this, and that keeps me together.
I felt deeply touched by the two days spent with Liz and Nick, I learnt so much and they gave so much information to us that it was hard to switch off for the next following days. To me they became old friends, or an aunt and uncle with the best advise in the world. I decided I wanted to personally thank them, so after filming we took them out for a nice lunch and chatted for hours. Documentary making is incredible for meeting such fascinating people.
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