Interview Searching and Directing

 

Considering the nature of our documentary, we realised that finding interviewees would be challenging. It needed to be clear in our search that the film wasn't any kind of gag, and the participants weren't going to be made fun of, so we had to be both sensitive and have a wide net to try to get people to interact with us. I ended up joining approximately 8 Facebook groups relating to Aliens, abductions, and UFO sightings, all with between 2k-90k members in them and active posters.

 

Above is the post I wrote out to put in all 8 groups, it had varying degrees of success in the form of responses, with the UK UFO Sightings being the most popular. I had a couple people approach me who were clearly not the sort of person we were looking for, and a lot of sighting images in the comments, but I managed to have a short text interview with a person who believed they were abducted.

 Subject: Ok so 2 years ago I went to my friends house to do some homework unfortunately we finished late and I had to walk home alone. Then I realised someone was following me so I started walking faster and I noticed it walk faster I started running and it grabbed me that's when I noticed a grey patch of skin. I fought it back and broke free and I after that it's been a blur till this day I even tried methods to try and remember what happened

Me: how were you feeling when this happened? and especially after, was anything different?

Subject: I felt exhausted. Like i just had a black out like a hangover

Me: okay that’s so strange. in the following days was everything normal again? did you think about it again much?

Subject: I started questing reality that's why I joined the conspiracy group

Me: wow ok, interesting. fighting it back did you see anything else? and we’re you scared at all?

Subject: Its very vivid. And I was very scared I think the reason I can't remember properly was because of the trauma I experienced

did it affect your relationship with anyone else? Did you tell other people and did they believe you I mean? Did anything similar happen ever again?

No I didn't tell anyone except for my friend because I thought people were going to think I'm crazy. Nothing strange ever happened since except for the wired dreams

weird dreams? are you okay with explaining that a little more?

They stopped around 4 months ago. The dreams usually start with me in a white room alone.

and these only started after your experience?

A week after

What makes you think they're related? Have you had sleep difficulties before?

Only for a couple of days. I think the dreams were like memories trying to return but I just couldn't remember everything

did you lose time after you were grabbed?

I think so. The concept of time didn't fully register

okay that's interesting. did you manage to regain more of the dream

No, I couldn't quite connect the dots

is that perhaps a relief? if you consider this a traumatic experience maybe your forgetting for a reason, do you feel?

Yes it's kind of a relief because I'm kinda on the brink of a mental breakdown

we can stop with questions completely if it feels bad

No it's fine

we shouldn’t continue if it’s stressful, don’t worry though what we’ve got so far is great

Ok I kinda like the questions because atleast someone understands

we’re trying to concentrate on how it affected you so anything you tell us about that is very helpful

It affected me mentally

were there lasting affects other than the dreams?

Not that I know of

Following the above interview, we needed a voice actor, which was passed to another team member. Under one of my posts I had a useful source, a member telling me to try contacting Malcolm Robinson, who investigated most encounters in the UK, and amazingly, was on the Robert Taylor incident, which was Lewis's original idea pitch that we didn't know if we could do because his family member's names weren't listed anywhere and Robert himself had passed away.

We conducted this interview via Skype, and I also had someone approach me for an anonymous interview which Lewis and I attended. This meant we had plenty of content to be working with and had a great start to the beginning of a project that really could've gone either way in terms of success: really well and smooth sailing, or super difficult and a trainwreck.