Tell Me A Story!

We've finished our third rehearsal and got some updates for you! Last week we interviewed our first guinea pig and learned a lot (thank you friend!) The main realization was that STORY prompted questions are fabulous (especially when trying to ask big questions like, what is your purpose) actually, we found that the purpose question was beyond daunting and only prompted uneasiness rather than answers. Instead, we came up with the question, "Tell me a story abut being 20Something" This allows for the freedom of the interview-ee to express whatever is on their mind. In fact, we edited all of the questions after learning we needed some kind of 'warm up' to the interview and we realized that wanted to ask more questions followed up with 'why'.

Here's our updated list:  

Name, Age, City, Job

1. Tell me a story about being 20Something

2. What do you do after work/weekends?

          What meal do you eat the most?

          What do you do when you're bored?

          What item can't you live without?

3. What do you love to do? Is there something you want to be doing that your not? WHY?

4. What did you expect your 20's to be like?

5. Did you feel prepared for your 20's?

6. If you had to say something to our generation, what would you say?

So our major goal for rehearsal was to be prepared for a public happening. I found a St. Patricks day event coming up that will be a good place to target first. We need to work on a big sign, make some kind of print materials about the project/blog/email, and update our project description (which we are editing weekly!) I got some AMAZING advice from a dear film friend regarding waivers. He said to think of waivers like insurance for us--so we can't be sued in the future for using someone elses image. Luckily he said we don't need separate consent forms for private/public/audio/film interviews (sigh of relief) He said we can combine it all into one. 

This week we're lining up a couple more interviews, preparing our awesome sign (tell me a story about being 20Something) and completing our various 'homework' tasks. 

In the meantime, check out our new email address: contactthe20somethingproject@gmail.com

Its long and perfectly humorous.

ALSO, we are thinking about expanding into various gathering options - if any of you would like to interview other 20Somethings in your area FEEL FREE. All we ask is that you email us, we'll send you a consent form & questions, and then you can get started! Send us your recordings/material and mmm we'll all get moving on this!

It's Interview Time

BIG things are happening here. We had rehearsal #2 last night. Please remember that you are along with us thru this process. Things will most definitely grow and change as we learn more about 20somethings and the stories they have to tell!

Here's what we've got:

Rehearsal Goal: Look at our time frame and get to a place where we can begin interviewing asap.

Time Frame: 

Gathering material in Detroit from March-May. Goal is roughly 3 interviews a week with at least 6 public interview/gathering events. After the gathering phase, we'll re-evaluate and decide next steps.

Interview Prep:

We created questions, waivers to sign (confidentiality and film), and a project description. Decided to start with interviewing 2 close friends this weekend for feedback 

Questions: (rough draft)
-What is your purpose?
-Are you happy?
-Is this what you expected your life to be like?
-What do you see for yourself?
-Who is our generation and what do you have to say to them?
-Do you consider yourself lost?
-Tell us a secret about being a 20something that no one talks about

Realizations:
-Our instinct is to limit the questions to 3-5 tops - - - however...see point below
-As we are in the pilot phase of the project, we want to remain EXPANSIVE and allow the process to dictate where to go...so what this means is that we want to try as many different gathering options as possible (as well as interview questions, we don't know which will provoke the most thought!). We're developing a list of 'experimental options' and we'll get it out t
o you asap so we make a bit more sense here.
-We are interested in learning the identity of our generation, but we are not sure if that is something we actually need to ASK 20somethings. Maybe thru asking everyones individual purpose/goals a larger identity will reveal itself...
-We're working on our project description and will get it out as soon as we like it haha
-Since we're experimenting on a couple of friends this weekend, I'm sure there will be changes to come. Our plan is to interview them with all of the questions above and gauge their experience from there!

Oh, and just to give you a visual, here's our rehearsal space!

    

The Water House, Detroit MI

We Begin

Welcome to The 20Something Project!

We're a 20something artist couple that is looking to find out the identity of our generation. What is our purpose? How do we figure it out? What's it like being adults now? What are we doing after work? How are we feeling about our lives and our potential? What makes us happy? All these good questions. We'll get into more detail as time rolls on (and) as we continue to build our project description and goals.

We had our first rehearsal last night and couldn't be more excited to get moving.Our main goal for rehearsal last night was to get ORGANIZED. Here's some things we figured out:

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Conceptual
-We're creating a pilot project BEFORE the actual launch of 20Something:

            In this pilot we want to go for quantity - experiment with as many different ways of gathering material

            and creating from the material so that we can decide the best form for the full-on project. We also 

            want to be able to show what works and what doesn't.

-There are 3 phases to the pilot: Gathering, Creation, Apply for grants

-Grant prep & pilot occurring simultaneously
-Pilot is not concerned as much with community impact, rather than expansive gathering & creation so we can make the project more specific as we reveal needs of the target audience
-Pilot dates: March-August 2014

What do we need to begin the pilot?
-Mission/Project description
-Interview Questions
-Talk to our mentors
-Project name
-Waiver
-Blueprint of confessional travelling booth
-Summer schedule of events to attend
-Marketing materials
-Recording equipment
-What kind of data do we want to gather?
-Blog (check!)

What documentation/material do we want by the end of the pilot?
-Interviews
-Video/audio (people & context)
-Anonymous writing box
-Blog
-Pictures
-Data - macro (nationwide data) vs. micro (our collections)
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SO, that's the beginning! We'll be blogging weekly, reflecting on our rehearsal and pilot process. Thanks for stopping by and if you are a 20Something--we want to hear from you, please message us with your thoughts!