Architecture of DataGenCARS: Main Classes

To record examples of the children’s ordinary, day-to-day behaviour with moving-image media (“viewing events”), I had to be ready to respond to situations as they developed. I wanted to record at least one viewing event each week when the children were at our home, but never managed more than three of these per month, except on the rare occasions when I made several videos during one extended viewing event (see “Monsters” and “Animatou 3+4” in Appendix 1). In Phoebe’s summer holidays when our childcare was much more randomly arranged, I made fewer videos. Thus my total of 65 videos, totaling 12.7 hours, shot between September 2011 and May 2013, only includes one from August 2012. The longer videos are mainly a continuous record of several different, or repeated, programmes or short films being watched, although some half-hour ones record the viewing of longer programmes such as In the Night Garden or Tree Fu Tom. One viewing event – ITNG Moustache – is included in the list but was not strictly speaking part of the project. The viewing was set up in May 2011 using a

borrowed camcorder, to capture the reactions I already knew were likely to happen, in response to a particular episode (see Section 4.2.1). Most of my videos were made during the children’s third year – December 2011 – December 2012. During and after this period there were 26 viewing events that for one reason or another I did not film, for which there are in most cases at least some Field Notes (see Section 2.4.4).

2.4.2 Video Technology

Once the project began, one of my earliest decisions was to use an iPhone 4 for both my video and audio recording. Having in the past used various types of camcorder and, before that, 16mm cameras, as well as participating in the making of several TV programmes, the iPhone was wonderfully liberating as a lightweight, compact and unobtrusive tool, with automatic focus, toleration of different light levels, and a reasonably good microphone. I was sometimes able to fix it up in advance, secured to a nearby piece of furniture with the help of a Gorilla flexible tripod, in a position where it seemed likely that the children would settle down. When using the tripod, I would use the “reverse screen” mode on the iPhone so that I could sit with the children but also see what was being recorded, and adjust the camera position if necessary; however, using a fixed camera often meant that I missed important moments (the list of viewing events in Appendix 1 indicates when the camera was “fixed” or “handheld”). The children did not

necessarily sit together, or even sit at all, so I more frequently held the iPhone in one hand,

making decisions about framing as I went along, but trying to avoid camera wobble and sudden zip pans. I could keep the phone in my pocket, slip it out and start filming whenever it seemed appropriate. I could hold the phone in my lap or rest my hand on another bit of furniture while filming, because the filmed image is displayed full-screen on the phone, which also meant that I could keep an eye on the larger context and pan from one child to the other, reframing with relative ease, if I thought this was necessary, although it always meant that I risked missing some salient behaviour from the child I wasn’t filming. With either fixed or hand-held camera, what I could capture was always partial, but that is the nature of movies. I made my own decisions about when to start and stop filming, often constrained by other demands such as starting and stopping the VCR or DVD player, or having to intervene in a dispute between the children. Often I would start filming and then discover that I was badly positioned to get both children in the frame: several of the early videos have sections where I am moving about, or where Phoebe or I are moving the furniture (see Figure 2.3).

Figure 2.3: Framing: Phoebe pulls Alfie into shot; Connie squirms off Terry’s lap

Framing is itself an editing device, in the sense that the filmmaker’s deliberate positioning of the camera excludes everything except what can be captured within the frame. The capacity of the camera’s microphone to capture sounds also functions as a default editor, in terms of what it can and cannot pick up. Using microphones attached to each person in the room (Flewitt 2006) would have vastly enriched the data, but was not going to be practical in the context of my research, and was in any case beyond my financial resources as a self-funded student. My worst mistake with the iPhone was to revert to the fixed camera mode for four viewing sessions between October and December 2012 (the children were 2;8 – 3 years old), where the light levels were too low for the camera and, because the iPhone was too close to the TV, the mic

failed to pick up much of what was probably very interesting dialogue. A potentially very successful idea that I tried spontaneously but only once, in October 2012, was to try

interviewing Alfie (aged 2;10) with the iPhone on reverse screen so that he could see himself.

His response was thoughtful and articulate, but Connie quickly joined in and began showing off to the camera, and Alfie wandered disconsolately away.

The only significant disadvantage of this kind of informal filming with a single hand-held camera is that it is very difficult to capture children’s eye movements as they watch. I managed this only once: in the first viewing of Animatou (see Section 3.4.1). This can be done with a camera located inside the monitor, later matching the output to the movie being watched, thus enabling an investigation of facial expressions and gaze in response to identifiable items on screen and sound track. However, this would have been impossible to set up in the informal contexts where I was working, and in any case, like multiple microphones, it was beyond my financial resources.

Although Phoebe and Dickon did not acquire iPhones until Christmas 2012, the children were accustomed to being photographed and recorded by adults using a variety of small mobile devices. Being recorded on an iPhone – whether handheld or fixed – was ignored by the children almost all the time. It is clear from the videos that in virtually all of them the children are

oblivious to being filmed. The only exceptions are rare occasions when only one of the children wanted to watch the television while the other moved closer to me, found out what I was doing, and immediately wanted to take over the filming themselves. The stage at which I stopped making videos – when the twins were aged 3;5 – was about the stage at which they did become a little self-conscious when being filmed, and would sometimes start “playing up” to the camera.

They never objected to it, and they never asked me why I was doing it. The videos show many occasions where the children glance at the camera while their gaze is shifting around the room, but few where they give it focused attention. The “reverse screen” mode used for the fixed camera meant that the children occasionally noticed it with interest (see Figure 2.4); when it was handheld, the lens window was not very noticeable and was almost always ignored.

Figure 2.4: Alfie (aged 2;2) notices himself on screen as I adjust the fixed camera

2.4.3 Research settings

I made an early decision that the main setting for my data-gathering would be in our house, on the days that Terry and I looked after the children. I had tried observing and video-recording in Phoebe and Dickon’s house, but felt that I had less control over the situation there, and

insufficient knowledge of the other play options, attractions and routines that were available to the children there. We were keen to create a home-from-home at our house, with a bedroom and playroom for the children, and plenty of toys on hand that were only available at our house, not at theirs. So the children became very used to the journeys to and from our house, and developed their own rituals of things they liked to do while there. Our house is a three-storey Victorian terrace house: when I began my research, our living-room was on the first floor, and the large through-room on the ground floor was used partly as Terry’s office but otherwise offered plenty of space for toy storage and play – and on one occasion for a viewing of Mike the Knight on his computer. By using a stair-gate and covering up the computer desk with a cloth, we were able to create a downstairs safe area analogous to the one at Phoebe and Dickon’s house; but for watching television, we had to go upstairs to the living room. The first “trial video” I made was in this room on 13^th September 2011 (see Figure 2.5) while I was still getting used to the filming process with the iPhone; four other very short ones were made on 26^th September during a shopping expedition with Phoebe and the children (see Figure 2.2).