Tutorial with Ben 02/02/23
I had my first tutorial with Ben today, I wasn’t sure what to expect as my other peers said their tutorials had them guided in a totally different direction to what they had planned, and this was somewhat the same for me. I found out this week that my idea was very similar to someone else’s in my cohort and initially this stung because I had felt this project had been so personal to me and had been something I’d been thinking of for a while. But after a few days I decided to let it slide and after my chat with Ben, he steered me in a different direction to what I had expected. I went into the tutorial thinking maybe I would be able to make my question more concise, but Ben pointed me in a certain direction based on my background and the project theme.
Ben informed me of a few different terms related to film psychology, namely film spectatorship, (cognitive and embodied.) Admittedly, I had never heard of these terms before and I started to feel uneasy about where the research was heading as I was desperate not to delve into anything too technical. That said Ben’s background and research was really helpful for my project as they share similar themes such as the intersection of film and emotion. I’ve decided to research into these terms as well as get a background on film theory. I would also like to explore emotional blunting, neurodivergence and autoethnography in relation to film psychology.
I think I will add in some of my own personal experiences with film, although Ben kindly reminded me that the project wasn’t about myself and that it should reflect the research. I want to look into the term affect and how it relates to film spectatorship. I would also like to look into film as a sensory experience and how this can be improved upon. I did think after this talk that my initial question was quite self-indulgent and Ben reminded me that my question actually focused on the viewer and spectator and so guided me in this direction.
We discussed how I was going to conduct my research and we scrapped the idea of making a survey as they aren’t truly representative of anything when the sample size is so small. He guided me in the direction of a qualitative study that would involve the viewer. We talked about using quotes from the studies to represent the research. It was also advised to meticulously research papers and other documents on emotional blunting, neurodivergence, and film spectatorship and to look for anything that overlaps and any conclusions/findings that I could make building on previous research. Overall, the tutorial was very helpful and has given me a bit of direction for where to go from here.