In my Research class this past semester, we learned a little bit about "qualitative research," and how sitting down with a person or a group of people and just asking them about their experience is indeed a legitimate form of research. Less structured, sure, and maybe not as useful in the grand scheme of things, but legitimate and important research nonetheless. Of course, every time we talked about qualitative research, I couldn't stop reflecting on my time as a qualitative researcher of films and friends.
What was the Your Favorite Movie project, if not research? I gathered specific participants, and used their words and their experiences to help answer a question. This is research, in its loosest, clumsiest, and often drunkest, form.
But that beggars the retrospective question: what exactly was the "question" I was trying to answer throughout Your Favorite Movie? When I started the project, I thought that the question was: "Why is one's favorite movie their favorite movie?" In other words, what makes a film worthy of "favorite" status? The only problem is, after 36 interviews, I feel like that question was first answered, and then ultimately came to be more of an albatross than the thing that kept the project afloat.
What I mean is that I realized way too late in the game that "favorite movie" should have been a red herring the whole time. The real question that a more competent and in-tune interview would've attempted to answer during these interviews was "What makes you the way you are?" The real magic, when it was occasionally and accidentally happened upon during any given interview, occurred when we were witness to a part of the interviewee's true self. When we glimpsed the inner truth, some part of that person when they use film discussions to let their guard down, that's where this blog project really worked.
The fact that it didn't always work that way (and see yesterday's archived interview for a great example of when it doesn't work) was due to my own shortcomings, my own inability to see the true purpose of this project before it was too late. What I should have done was to use the "favorite movie" conceit as an excuse to talk about the person, and too often I would use the person as an excuse to talk about their favorite movie. And that isn't as fun or exciting or worthy of the research time given to it.
If I could start it over, I would, now knowing what could have been achieved with the right question in mind. And, like I said, it's not like we didn't accidentally get there sometimes anyway. But this could have been better. I could've been better.
Could I start this over? It's tempting to think about it, during these first quiet weeks of a summer that stretches out before me. What if I asked people about a different art form? Your Favorite Album?
Two thoughts about this hypothetical. The first is logistics. The bulk of my movie interviews were done in a household with one child who slept soundly at the same time every night. Now, with two kids here and who knows how many more in the future and extremely tenuous sleep schedules, the timing seems closer to impossible than possible. Plus, factor in the move to the Great Northeast in the interim, and the shrinking likelihood that people are going to want to make the trek a further 25 minutes in this direction for a fucking blog project, and man, things aren't looking good, are they? And then you have to consider the fact that transcribing takes so much time. Time that I definitely had when I was in the office five days a week, taking calls that only sporadically rang on my desktop phone. Time that I definitely don't have now, removed from the office three of those days, with homework squeezed into what used to be downtime. I dunno.
Logistics aside, though, I really do think that the Your Favorite Album idea (perhaps with a more creative name this time) would be worthy of pursuit, if not now, then eventually. It would work well for a few reasons. One, my understanding of and appreciation for music is more advanced than for movies (if I thought originally that YFM would help me in this regard, I was mistaken), so I'd feel more comfortable in the interview role. Two, there would theoretically be less hard facts and data to discuss, since the average album is like half the length, at least, as your average film. That would translate to less sprawling interviews. This would also mean that there would be more room to talk about the person in the context of the album, and not the other way around.
In that regard, we should probably change the question that I'd be presenting to interviewees to begin with, right? "What is your favorite album and why?" would just lead us down the same dark paths again. How about: "What is the album that means the most to you, and why?" Now there's a question that puts the focus on the person. That's what we want here. That's where the magic is. (Plus: changing the question to maybe "What is an album that means a lot to you?" might mean we could do multiple interviews in a way that asking the finite question of "all-time favorite" impeded.)
So it is here that we pause. Our deep dive in the human psyche via film is concluded, and we will start up again in a different arena, at a different time, with a more clearly stated purpose.
Until then, I want to thank every who participated in the interviews for everything they contributed to the project, despite my shortcomings in the process. Looking back, I really do feel like I know more about my friends than I did prior to asking them about their favorite movie of all time. This was all about you, even if I didn't realize it until it was too late. So a very delayed thank you to you all.
And where does that leave you, humble blog reader? Well, two options for you. The first is that you can start your own blog series. Buy a decent, reasonably priced voice recorder, and get out there and start talking to people. You know you have a place available to you for dropping transcripts, right here on Puke on Your Birthday.
The second option? I guess you can tell me what the album that means the most to you is. Maybe we can get this thing started before 2023. Probably not, but the more rumblings I feel, the likelier I am to motivate myself to do it.
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