Miriam: What do you think motivated them during the workshop?
 
Matt:

Umm. Besides me yelling at them? I'm kidding, I didn't yell at them. They were motivated I think - I think they were motivated largely by the possibly of popularity. I think, that seemed to be like a big motivation. I mean they kept talking about the way they appear on camera that was, which to them. To me that was really fascinating because it was the first time I met a group of kids that desperately wanted to be on camera not behind the camera. I don't know if that's a gender thing, because it's the first group I did that's all girls. Um in other courses it's usually the guys are really interested in the mechanics of the camera and the computer and how all these things work and the girls are more interested in being in front of the camera. I don't know where this stuff comes from, I am not a sociologist, but um they were really intrigued by being in front of the camera and their motivation seemed to be that they had the opportunity to be like on Youtube or something. That if they put it on Youtube their friends would see it and they would be you know, stars, in some sort of strange...

Miriam: And do you remember that weird moment when we having the conversation about bullying and then it turned out that Sarah had bullied some people?
 
Matt: Yeah
 
Miriam: Talk a bit about, like sort of what do you think of their content motivations?
 
Matt:

Well I think they were intrigued about making a public service announcement, especially when we showed them the ad council ones, um they were really interested in them. Right, I think they were intrigued by public service announcements when they saw the ad council videos that we showed them in the course. After that I think their motivation was they were just trying to do what we wanted them to do. When you know, we were like we're going to make a public service announcement and they were kinda like what's that and then we introduced the idea to them.

Um I think they wanted to do one about, it seemed like they kinda just pulled the idea of doing a public service announcement about bullying out of some sort of like random reference from some other experience, like it seemed like that's where it came from. Like they were kinda like, oh you want us to make a movie about bullying. And we were like, well that's a really good idea, but do you wanna do that? It kinda seemed like they knew what we wanted to hear and just said that. That's the impression that I got it doesn't seem like they really wanted to make one about bullying especially when it turned out that they were kinda bullies themselves.

Miriam: So what do you think, if you were to do it again, how would you change that? What would you do to make it less kind of...
 
Matt:

I don't, I mean we gave them sort of, like, I mean we were like okay you can make a public service announcement about anything. I think they didn't really understand the themes that are usually discussed in public service announcements and maybe one of them that we showed them was about bullying or something, so that's where they were like, okay let's do that, because that's what they knew. Um, maybe by giving them a short list of topics to choose from by themselves and let them go off and discuss it and come back. I mean, I'd want them to sort of be able to choose their own subjects but I think they basically chose that one because it seemed like those were the ones that we were interested in them doing.
 
Miriam: Can you talk a little bit about, because I've noticed it myself to that idea of modeling? You were saying earlier that despite yourself you've become a role model and ended up having to, sort of, you start discussing okay well guys what do you want to do, and they sit there and they're like what do you want us to do? So tell me about the experience as of a teacher of having that happen. 
 
Matt:

How to get them to make their own decisions without looking to you to just find out what you want? Um, I don't know, I think maybe the best way to get them to make their own decisions is by letting them just go off in break, those sort of breakout sessions. I think that's what they're called - where you sort of let people go, and like form a group, a circle and just sort of discuss and come to some sort of agreement and come back and tell you what they've decided without your involvement is the best way for them to make their own decisions. ‘Cause they can't sort of read your body language, and if you're not participating in their discussion, you can't lead them. That tends to happen I think, with instructors, they pick up little bits of information and sort of are like, oh yeah I heard something about you know, anti-smoking."