Friday Memo #1

Between working at the Ryersonian and back-to-school madness, the progress of my MRP has taken somewhat of a backseat. However, this is only temporary as I am settling into my school and work schedules and further progress will resume next week.

Since handing in my Expanded Treatment, I have followed up with my main characters and scheduled further phone/Skype interviews with them. In the coming week(s), I am going to have to decide which character is going to be the main character, or if all three should be given equal attention. Since I am doing a digital feature, perhaps I could have a separate page for each person’s story.

Next week, I am going to start contacting expert sources and scheduling preliminary interviews with them. A potential challenge with my expert sources is that many of them work in hospitals, so I would have to gain permission to film and record at their workplaces or find another place to interview them. Sydney Wilson gave me a contact for a geneticist in Yorkville and I am going to start with her. I am going to have to do further research before interviewing any of my expert sources so I know what kinds of questions to ask them. Another task for next week will be forming a list of questions for each of my expert sources.

One ongoing issue from the summer is that many people have been reaching out to me with sources and potential characters. It is not the worst problem to have since an excess of sources is never bad, but I am going to have to include people in my MRP with the most intriguing stories. This is going to be somewhat of a challenge because I wouldn’t want to exclude anyone that has a unique experience, but I also have to realize that the overall thesis of my MRP is bigger than any one character.

At the end of class Wednesday, Taylor gave a good idea for a theme statement. Since then, I have been thinking about what the layout of my website is going to look like with the theme statement front and center to get the audience thinking. Even though I’m not at the stage of putting my MRP together, it’s always good to have it the back of my mind.