My Great Aunt Heather and Great Uncle Roger’s love for one another had a profound effect on my life from a young age. From knowing each other as children to romancing from a distance as young adults, they came together at a party and as Heather says, “were never apart after that”. Despite Roger passing away in 2018, the happiness they gave one another still lives on within Heather, who is watching the next generation of their family grow up and feel the same emotions as we speak.
Reflection
My emotional history project, titled “A Call to the Past”, is a two minute audio piece that features my Great Aunt Heather and tells the story of her relationship with my late Great Uncle Roger. The primary emotion focussed on in the piece is happiness, shown by the effect they had on one another’s lives, an emotion that lives on despite Roger’s passing.
I conducted this interview, which went for around 20 minutes, over the phone, which presented its own set of ethical and journalistic challenges. I was unable to use non-verbal techniques such as “eye contact, facial expressions and nodding to affirm” (Macey, Ellingsen 2021). Furthermore, Block and Erskine (2012) state in The International Journal of Qualitative Material that “there may be challenges to interpersonal communication, specifically in the formation of trust, caused by separation between interviewer and subject.” As my Great Aunt and I are very close I didn’t feel any lack of trust, but physical separation and not being able to see her reactions and facial expressions did make conducting this interview more challenging.
Part of the inspiration for this project was their love despite Roger having an accident in surgery that led to him being paralysed from the waist down for the last 20 years of his life, however I didn’t feel comfortable asking specifics about this over the phone and made the creative decision not to mention it in passing within the story. I did this as the accident did not affect their love to one another and therefore their happiness together, which is the intended primary emotion of the piece. This decision is backed in the MEAA Journalists Code of Ethics, which states that journalists must “respect private grief and personal privacy”.
I also interviewed Roger and Heather’s son George, again for around 20 minutes, but made the decision to focus on Heather’s interview to allow her to tell the story from a single point of view and fit as much detail in as possible within two minutes.
Some other creative decisions I made once I began editing included adding ambience and sound effects at key moments such as the beginning of their “love affair” at the party, Heather thinking of Roger when she was in London overlooking Lords (Roger was a very keen cricketer) and the birth of George. I also implemented the sound of the phone ringing for context to the title and how the interview was conducted.
The piece also uses music, which is introduced toward the end of the story for texture and to highlight the moment where we discover Roger has passed away. There is a pause before Heather starts talking again for the listener to take this in, and when she does begin speaking she talks of Roger “still being here with us” in a positive manner.
Podcaster Rachel Corbett encourages audio journalists to “use it (music) sparingly and think creatively about where you’re placing it and why,” and I feel I was able to do this by placing music at this point and no other in the story.
Overall I aimed to show happiness in life and death in this piece and hope that this primary emotion is displayed to the listener by my implementation of the above techniques and processes.
References
Block, E, Eskine, L. 2012, Interviewing by Telephone: Specific Considerations, Opportunities, and Challenges, The International Journal of Qualitative Material, p.7
Macey, J, Ellingsen, S. 2021, The Power of Sound, University of Wollongong, p.8
Corbett, R. Should you use Music in your Podcast?, viewed 1st September, available at: https://rachelcorbett.com.au/blog/podschool-podcast-use-music-podcast/
Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, (2021), MEAA Journalist Code of Ethics, viewed 4th September 2021, available at: https://www.meaa.org/meaa-media/code-of-ethics/
Russ Haylock Sportswriting 