Update on Interviews - Jermaine Jackson

Less than a week ago our group was still somehow missing the bulk of our project, and essentially the most important part, the Veterans. It is difficult to set up interviews through Interfaith because we have to run the people by Christine, and Christine then has to run it by Interfaith and get approval. Or in many cases Interfaith will tell Christine that they had a person set up for us even without a chance to do pre-interviews which made the subjects often unsuccessful. So for last Tuesday we originally had two interviews set up through Interfaith. One was a reshoot with Eric, and then another person that they were going to provide to us. Fortunately we got the go ahead to steal one more person, who we were happy to finally get in contact with. Jeff and I met up at school earlier in the day around 12:00 to get all of the equipment checked out from everywhere on campus since supplies were limited. We checked all the equipment to make sure it was working, and after that went over a lot a good chunk of the footage we had shot in the previous week to put in our rough edit. The we met with Christine at round 2:00 and set up everything before we started our first interview and shot all the way until around 7:00.

Our first interview of the day was with another man named Eric. When we talked with him he was really interactive, but as soon as we got him in front of a camera he tried to hard to make it "sound good" (as he liked to say). We got him to loosen up and told him to just be himself and to be honest. With a little guidance we got him to open up about his life. He talked about a lot of his struggles after the military. Eric Even talked about the fact that he had to sleep on his Kids's floor of their mother's house and how much it hurt him as a father. He has goals to be an X-ray technician and with help from Interfaith he can finish his schooling and move onto his career to finally support his children again and be the Father he wants to be.

After we finished the first interview we packed up everything to move locations for our next Interview with Eric (from weeks prior). We found a nice spot in the back courtyard that had good outdoor conditions and gave us a nice depth of field. Unfortunately the first time we interviewed Eric we had some difficulties with audio. But we really wanted to convey his message and tell his story, so we ended up back with him again on tuesday to go over some of the points again. Our issues, however, ended up being a blessing in disguise. Because Eric was already familiar with our group and accustomed to the whole process, he was much more comfortable in front of the camera and with this second time around, he was much more open. Eric talked about what it meant to be homeless and how difficult it was to find a place to sleep at night. It really hit home when he talked about living under a bridge. Even the other homeless people sometimes didn't accept him, but he had no choice. He is now working a lot in the career center to start a new career since he was laid off due to downsizing at his last job.

After our interview with Eric (1) it was getting close to time to pack up, but some time left over. Christine said we could still meet with Kevin since he was available that evening. After hearing Kevin speak while filming b-roll earlier in the week at the Life Skills workshop, we knew we HAD to have him and couldn't miss this opportunity. Since we still had time we thought we could squeeze him in. Kevin's is really emotional, but is also uplifting since someone like him always has a positive attitude. Kevin was in the Army originally, and after he got out he had his own company. Sadly it fell through. He told us about how he used to have to sleep in his van, and other things like losing his best friend to cancer. He shed a few tears and almost made our entire group come to his emotional level as well. He also said some really great stuff about how some Veterans feel their community has forgotten about them, and how people should make sure they don't feel that way. This would be really great to use in our project to get people to WANT to help Interfaith help veterans.

Although our Interviews ran a little long, especially after the last minute Kevin interview, we definitely got what we needed and their testimonials will do great for the video project. After listening to what all of them had to say, I learned a lot about veterans and the problems they face. Veterans essentially don't need any coaching or someone to hold their hand to get them to their next personal level because they are all typically independent and strong willed. What they need, instead, is groups like interfaith to give them a "hand up" to help them out of their slump. This help covers a lot of the daily stress so they will not have to focus daily on where to sleep and where to get food. With these issues taken care of they can focus more on how to better themselves and how to better their future. All of these interviews were really emotional, and I think that by presenting their testimonials in the project it will help move the community to backing Interfaith with whatever they need.