The Web Wide World of Jon Hoevenaars

The project is starting to take some preliminary shape. I have been working with Martin Green from the National Trust and Andrew Godden who is also lending his assistance to Voices from the Waterfront.

Andrew has been busy organising interview talent for the documentaries while I’ve been seeking out locations and organising the ethics approval statement.

We’ve also been discussing some ideas for the production of the documentaries: where the interviews could be shot, what overlay footage we could use, whether we could obtain some artefacts or historical documents to assist the interviews and who our priorities for interview are.

I hadn’t yet considered the prospect that many of the people we intend to interview are quite old and in poor health. Being able to prioritise our interviews and conducting them safely and efficiently are vital to the project.

Together, we decided that the questions we ask our interviewees should be fairly generic so that the same questions can be asked to people of separate professions. Some of the topics we want to cover are:

• Incident of greatest personal pride
• Scariest memory
• Skills acquired
• Funniest memory
• Funniest colleague
• Working hours conditions
• Description of working environment
• Machinery/equipment used on the wharves
• Biggest insurance cliams
• Transport of passengers/cargo in the port
• Strikes/workforce reductions
• Union representatives
• Payday
• Worst cargoes/ships/shifts
• Wharfie gangs
• Health and safety

I’m working on finishing the ethics statement and a release form for our interviewees to sign before we proceed with the production phase.

Logistically, we need to find shoot locations that are well lit and have relevant visuals but are relatively sound-proof or at least free from sounds not relevant to our production content.