Over this last week and half a lot has happened – I’ve completed four interviews since we last spoke which I will go into a bit more detail about how they went in a specific blog post soon to come.

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I have met with a psychology professor, who campaigns for raising better awareness for mental health, as well as being a Patron and Trustee for the Samaritans, who provided me some great insight into the differences between the male and female mind and how this may have effected the gender gap in suicide rates.

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I also spoke to two families who have been directly impacted by male suicide within their immediate family, which was both emotionally and editorially difficult due to the understandably sensitive nature of the topic of suicide. In terms of my own story, I found sharing some of my experiences with my interviewees’ to be very rewarding and in fact hugely eye-opening.

 

To be able to connect the statistics with the emotion and the people behind the data is incredibly important for my documentary. They spoke with me about their thoughts on the current statistics, and one interviewees was particularly shocked at how high the data for 2014 actually was (4,630 male suicides in 2014). It was additionally very interesting to get their opinions on the stigma that surrounds mental health and male suicide heavily within society – to get numerous first hand accounts and then be able to compare them to one another was very interesting, as in places they did not necessarily agree.

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In terms of an editing update – the production process for my radio documentary has been coming along nicely, so far I have edited all four of my interviews and cut the rather long interviews into nice short clips which I can use in my documentary.

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The next stage for me is to complete my last three interviews, hopefully within the next week or two and then get cracking on with making my finished piece!

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I haven’t touched the video’s I recorded for my TV element yet – it’s on my check list of things to do…