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Mid-Term Review of Work in Progress | Interactive Documentary

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By Candide Uyanze and Trish Mwenda

 

Table of Contents

 

Updates

Interviews

We have completed our first round of interviews with the following people:

  • Wanda: Candide’s friend (in English)
  • Gabrièla: Candide’s little sister (in French with some English)
  • Salome: Trish’s mom (in Kikuyu)
  • Roy: Trish’s friend (in Swahili and English)
  • Mwenda: Trish’s dad (in Meru)
  • Trish and Candide: we interviewed each other (in English)
  • Lumenganu: Candide’s mom (in French)

 

We asked them the following questions:

  • What’s your name?
  • Which language(s) do you speak?
  • Which language(s) do you understand?
  • Which language(s) can you read and write in?
  • What language do you think in?
  • Which language do you use the most and why?
  • What are your earliest memories with these languages?
  • How do you feel about the languages you speak?
  • What role has language played in your life?
  • Is there anything else that you would like to share that I haven’t asked you about?

 

Trish also did another interview with her parents who as of different tribes to get their experience on navigating each other's cultures during their wedding. The questions asked are as follows:

  • What was your collective experience marrying outside your tribes and how did navigate the new cultures?
  • How did your families react to you marrying outside of your tribes?
  • What advantage did you have being able to speak Kikuyu (her mother's mother tongue – this question was directed to her father)
  • Is there any additional information you would like to share?

 

Management & Logistics

To organize all our audio content, notes, and tasks, we created an Airtable base. So far, we have corrected the source audio, have started condensing some of the interview audio and extracting segments with Kdenlive, and created a transcript for Wanda’s interview using Otter.

 

Technology

We are exploring the possibility of using Airtable as the backend for our website using a React visual WYSIWYG builder called AppGyver. We created a demo using the audio segments from Wanda’s interview, which can be found here: https://interactivedoc.appgyverapp.com/. The process has some limitations, but the platform allows us to automatically populate our web app using the entries in the Airtable base.

 

Screenshot of our demo

 

Next steps

Interview

After discussing with David, we’ve decided to create a new batch of questions, and re-interview some of our interviewees with the following prompts:

  • What is something you can say in one language, but can’t say in another?
  • What do the sound and cadence of the languages you speak mean to you?
  • What is important to you about language?
  • What did your parents and grandparents say about their language(s)? How did they feel about them?
  • How do you feel about speaking in your least proficient language (especially if you don’t have a choice)?
  • What is your favourite poem/quote or song in one of the languages you speak? Would you be willing to recite or sing it?
  • What is your favourite word in the languages you speak?
  • Are you afraid that your language will disappear? What does that mean to you?
  • How do you feel when you’re in a situation where you don’t understand the language being spoken?
  • Have you been in situations where you were grateful for knowing a particular language?
  • How do you think the different languages you know influenced one another?
  • What do you think your language sounds like to someone else?
  • Do you have a memorable memory of a time when you had to switch languages?

We also plan on documenting our process with a follow-up interview with each other where we compare notes, discuss what intrigues us so far, and reflect on what to do next.

 

Editing - Candide

Candide will take care of editing down all the audio by the end of February. Then, with the help of Trish, she’ll take care of extracting the audio segments, adding them to Airtable with the appropriate metadata tags, and generating transcriptions.

 

Transcripts in Meru, Kikuyu, and Swahili

Trish will take care of manually writing transcriptions for the interviews conducted in Meru, Kikuyu, and Swahili. Because there are no speech-to-text tools for the first two languages, this process will be quite time-consuming. If time permits, she will also translate the transcriptions into English.

 

Selection of segments to use

Once the segments are all in Airtable, we will meet to discuss the direction of the work and decide which segments to use.

 

Wireframing & Design

Candide will take care of wireframing and designing the website on Figma. Once this is done, we will both decide on a final design.

 

Building

Trish will take care of building the website template on AppGyver.

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