Evaluation

The past few weeks seemed to have brought me some very bad luck, within this negative time of my life I’ve learnt to appreciate the things that I do already have, things that normally I would have taken for granted like a warm bad to sleep in at night, a loving family, a roof over my head, great friends and more than one meal a day. I believe that the majority of us don’t realise what we have until it’s gone which is understandable yet doesn’t have to be the case, a world where we appreciate the things we have more would be a brighter, happier one.

My video was created to trigger the appreciative and happy mood that people get when they realise that they have got things going good in their life, even if the feeling only lasts the duration of the video itself. 

My initial plan was the interview people from different walks of life and compare what made them happy throughout the main ages of it, but after attempting interviews multiple times and didn’t receive mutual co-operation, I changed the interview to handing out small questionnaires for the people to fill in, I found this technique less intimidating for both me and the receiver as well as quicker and more truthful as the member of the public that I was asking felt uncomfortable talking to me about their life and seemed to find it much easier writing it down on a piece of paper!

Abigail Solomon-Godeau’s ‘Inside out debate’ prompted me to get into the lives of these people yet without the intense interview I had planned, I could only but imagine. 

I asked two music students to make me some background music, I asked for a ‘happy, uplifting, bouncy’ tune and allowed them to interpret that brief as they wished. I received two brilliant pieces of music from Jacob Puckering and Jack Bowden, in the end though I picked the drum based piece over the guitar based piece. I asked for both because these two people both specialise in different instruments and I wanted a wider range to pick from at the end rather than being stuck with one piece of music that might not have fit in with what I was doing. 

I chose to portray the things that make people happy in both stills and video because I wanted to show I could produce both, I think they work well together but only after speeding up my videos so the fast flow from the still carried on through to the videos. 

My final video does what it’s meant to, it shows people no matter how sad they are at that particular time, there will always be something that makes them happy. The video makes people happy by getting them to think about ‘What makes them happy’ whilst watching the answers of other people and finally it prompts the appreciative feeling that I aimed to trigger in the viewers. 

Background Noise

I want an uplifting, happy tune to play in the background whilst my images and videos were flowing and over the top of that I want different voices saying the things that make them happy.

When I was in Manchester asking the public if I could take a photo of them smiling I also asked them the question 'What makes them happy?' and asked to record their voice, I am going to use these voices in my video, matching the answers up to the corresponding image/video.

For my music I decided to ask two of my friends who are music students, Jacob Puckering and Jack Bowden, to create an 'uplifting, happy, bouncy, bright' tune. I was very happy with what they came back with.

Video Layout

For my video I'm showing all the things that make people happy in the form of both film and stills, the order I will put the things that make people happy in, is as followed:

Animation - Video - Animation - Still Image - Animation - Video - Animation - Still Image - Animation - Video - Animation - Still Image - Animation - Video

And the objects/scenarios will fit into the basic layout above and will order as followed:

The sun - Snoozing Alarm - Cup of Tea - Food - Mum and Dad messing - 'I love you' text - Looking good - Alcohol - Me and Mum growing up - Pets - Strangers Smiling - Memories (pic and mix, water bombs) - Finding money on the floor - Being handed a coat to keep warm

To capture the sun I didn't just want to do the obvious which would be to take a photo of the sun so I've decided to make a small stop animation of a painted sun and sky. I like the effect of the stop animation so will be using for most of the things that I'm going to portray. The stop animation effect gives the clip a snapshot, quick, bouncy feel which comes across as happy to me. A few people said their pets made them happy so I filmed my cat walking towards the camera. I went around Manchester asking strangers to smile to the camera because one of the things that makes me happy is getting smiled at by strangers! At first, like every public based photography I do, I was nervous but once I got started I relaxed very quickly and began enjoying talking to the public. Everyone I asked said yes apart from 1 couple so my confidence was high throughout the day. People were interested in asking what I was doing and I was interested in telling them, a few of the people really liked the photos I took and asked for me to email them along to them. I feel as though one of my strong points in photography is approaching and talking to strangers and subtlety persuading them to do what I want them to do, I more often than not have people agreeing to do what I've asked and come out at the end feeling confident and productive. These are the photos I took on that day before editing:

I went through the list of what makes people happy and carried on filming and taking snapshots of each of them to later put together to form a video.

Solidified Video Idea

I looked through all of my results so far and made a list of the most common answers and some answers that are personal to people yet others may be able to connect with. I put the answers together so it would be easier for me to know what footage to gather.

I have looked at these results and thought up ways of how I can portray them through both stills and video. I'm going to try and to some filming as well as some stop animation type to see which looks best when it's all put together in my final video.

What Makes Me Happy?

I asked well over 30 people the questions 'What make you happy?' and 'What was the happiest moment of your life?' and none of them but one were curious as to what my answer was. After being asked my own questions by my friend after I asked him, really made me think hard about what my project was about in the way that it was difficult to really pin point what made me happy. I thought long and hard about my answers and came up with this:

What makes me happy?Well I like things that remind me of the good times of my past like water bombs, old cartoons and certain pic and mix sweets! I love seeing rainbows, no matter how down I feel, rainbows always make me smile. Making new friends makes me happy. When my dad comes home with a surprise take away. The sun makes me happy, when I can sit outside with a drink with my friends! It makes my day when I find a penny on the floor because I always think back to being young when my mum used to tell me that picking a penny up off the floor gives you good luck, I always pick them up when I see them now! It makes me happy when strangers smile at me on the street and when bus drivers are nice as usually they seem to be pretty grumpy! It makes me happy when something happens that only me and my brother understand and we both look at each other knowing that only us two understand.
The happiest moment of my life? I can think of 2 off the top of my head, the first was when we found my cat, Dave, after he went missing because he ran away to die because he was very ill, (I loved him more than anything in the world, still do even though he's not with us anymore) and the second happiest moment in my life was when we got the 'all clear' from the hospital about my brother.

Being asked these questions, I realized how difficult it was to think of an answer because once you start thinking you realize there are a lot of things that make you happy. I like the fact that I've learnt this because now I know that by me asking people what makes them happy would have make them think of happy things and happy memories thus probably making them feel happy at that time I hope my video will make the viewers question what makes them happy and also bring the happiness to them whilst they think about it!

Questionnaires Take 2

I asked my friends and family the same questions as what I asked the strangers last time to see if the results were more honest and accurate as they'd have longer to answer them. I used Facebook to message a bunch of family and fiends from different backgrounds and gave them as long as they needed to reply. Here are my results:

Makes him happy:
Being with my family, speaking with them. thinking about them. pictures. same for friends. good friends and family make me happy. along with the simple things of life. good hearty food, and alcohol. then there is my work, but that isn't something i just am happy doing, its my life.

Happiest moment of his life:
I could never pin point my happiest moment. I don’t think that is possible. so one very happy moment in my life was, getting into drama school and moving to London. because, I have been to university twice before, I didn't enjoy them. I feel that going to my first two uni’s was a knee jerk reaction, and I just wanted to escape from the troubles at home, because i was sick of dealing with the pain of it all, i have always felt i was still putting other first until, I finally found something, DRAMA SCHOOL that i had achieved and nothing was to get in my way of this that being family issues. i think i am more happy about this because the things that kept me back at home initially had got better and it made my move to London a very positive experience.
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Makes him happy:
Money makes me happy. 

Happiest moment of his life:
When i left home that was when i was 17, 7 years ago

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Makes him happy:
caring for others makes me happy. i am content in life to care for another and make sure they are happy. for instance, i am not happy when i am alone as now. i wish to be in a relationship for which i can care for the woman, our children and inevitbly a family. when i am alone i am most unhappy. for when i am caring for someone else they are caring for me and the feeling of mutual conscientiousness is lovely. when i have in the past lived with and around people who lack a conscience for others it makes me un happy.

Happiest moment of his life:
The happiest moment of my life is a hard one but currently it is every time i am busking. since i have begun busking i have been able to escape any feelings of depression or illness i have completely 
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Makes her happy:
Okay i'll have a think cos I literally can only think of smoking lol
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Makes her happy:
There are hundreds of happy times in our lives, but the main happy times is when I feel love and a sense of being wanted, to see a child happy  playing and smiling, when things work out for others, I could go on and on , so many things, when things go well for family and friends, miracles happening every day, that's what makes me happy.

I'm most happy when I am contented, and having good health so I can live life to the best I can do.

Happiest moment of her life:
The happiest moments in my live are having met the man of my dream and got married feeling secure having 3 beautiful children, having grand children appear so I can share my love with them.
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Makes him happy:
Completing, or successfully doing something i've been trying to do for a long time

Happiest moment of his life:
one night out in australia, in subiaco 
or the day i got confirmation i was going to australia
no, the boat race 2012, we won! In senior 8s
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Makes him happy:
Friends... and video games

Happiest moment of his life:
Manchester City beating QPR on the last day of the season to win the Premier League
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Makes her happy:
McDonalds makes me happy and food in general. Sorry but I cant think of anything else. Sweet things cheer me up, so do cheesey things and spicy things. When I'm down, I stick my face into a fat portion of mac n cheese, and I'm not sad for long because I know Dominos are just on the other end of the phone.

Happiest moment of her life:

I cant particularly remember what the happiest moment of my life was, nothing really springs to mind, its all been kinda so-so plus my memory isnt very good so I could tell u the happiest I've been this week which was when this guy was telling me a story about how he shat himself in a club
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Makes him happy:
Both my family life and my job! I have a very close family and love that, it's massive aswel so there's never a dull moment! I like how my parents are my friends! And how all the Irish side are entertainers so a family party is like a variety show! Great fun! 

Happiest moment of his life:
There's been some great moments, like the births of all my nephews and nieces, or getting signed by my agent, or the moment I got the part on the advert but I have to say the happiest moment of my life to date is the day Manchester city won the premier league! Just amazing! Every time I see that winning goal I get goosebumps all over again! Man city is a massive part of my life, as a child we were never that good and we used to get ripped by everyone so now it's to see us doing so well. 
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Makes her happy:
My children make me happy.

Happiest moment of her life:
The happiest moment of my life was 21 years ago when I held my daughter in my arms for the very first time.
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Makes him happy:
Im happy when im in good company, with a pint.

Happiest moment of his life:
My happiest moment I cant tell you unfortunately.
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Makes him happy:
Making music
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Makes him happy:
Seeing my children happy and smiling (cliche I know). Also doing things I love, photography being the main one but also listening to music, both of which can be the thing that takes me somewhere else in my head.

Happiest moment of his life:
The births of my two boys
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Makes her happy:
What makes me happy the most is having my two beautiful boys. They make every day worth getting up for and after having a lot of sadness in my life they are my reason for living. Waking up to them every day and watching them grow up together makes me so happy.

Happiest moment of her life:
The happiest moment of my life was about 4 months ago when I was cuddling jenson and jaiden came over and started to cuddle us both and he stroked jensons head and gave him a kiss and said 'love you jenson'. It was that lovely a moment it made me cry with happiness.
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Makes him happy:
I suppose seeing my family and friends make me happy

Happiest moment of his life:
Probably passing my driving test
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Makes him happy:
What I find makes me happy in recent months, is my friends, finding myself, knowing I'm good at what I do and that people are there for me through thick and thin

Happiest moment of his life:
Happiest moment of my life, I guess if I had to pick, that would be be a hard one, but let's just go with the first time I came to your house party
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Makes him happy:
Music makes me happy. Animals do also. Hanging out with my friends or seeing my dogs. Good weather makes me happy too. When it's really sunny.

Happiest moment of his life:
Happiest moment in my life was probably when my dad bought me my first decent guitar for Christmas because I didn't expect it at all. Was a really really nice surprise
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Makes him happy:
Seeing the people who matter the most to me makes me happy. Spending time with friends and Dan makes me happy.

Happiest moment of his life:
The most happiest moment of my life was when I met Dan in February.
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Makes him happy:
Good day out, like a day that's gone really well, and your content because you have achieved something worthwhile.

Happiest moment of his life:
As for the happiest moment of my life, im not sure will have to get back to you on that, like its always things like getting awards makes me feel great.

That and performing on stage.
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Makes him happy:
What makes me happy is in fact hanging around u guys and other people. It's basically the greatest thing I look forward to each and every time. You guys have given me so many great memories and would probably still be a social outcast I was in college and high school. So in other words, u guys changed my way of things.
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Makes him happy:
When I'm sad i like to go for a walk and listen to of monsters and men. The music cheers me up and makes the world not seem so bad.

Happiest moment of his life:
My happiest memory was when i had my heart operation (was rather young) i went to the hospital payphone, my dad passed me the phone and my mum was describing my room which had just been decorated telling me about my Thomas the tank engine wallpaper and matching curtains and she was crying as she told me but it was happy cause i was excited to get home and be with my family.
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Makes her happy:
If my family are all well and they are happy

Happiest moment of her life:
My wedding day and the birth of my kids and grand kids.
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Makes her happy:
Family makes me happy because they're the only ones that will always be there for you, no matter what. Friends come and go, and they have limits and restrictions but family is always there.

Happiest moment of her life:
And I don't have a happiest moment of my life, but I know that my happiest and most content moments are when I'm in the presence of my family.
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Makes him happy:
I'm happy when I know I've achieved something. Such as leaving the gym knowing I'm improving myself, or when I passed my units in uni. Also winning makes me happy as I'm very competitive so during football and boxing I don't enjoy the game I enjoy the victory. I'm also happy when I know I've influenced my cousin in the right way as with his autism he struggles to work out how to problem solve so by him thinking "what would James do" makes me incredibly happy. And the usual family and friends putting smiles on people's faces.

Happiest moment of his life:
I guess it was when cousin Liam told me I was his hero and he wants to be like me. Have me the push to be a good person and role model for the lad. Was a quality feeling and still makes me smile.
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Makes him happy:
Football, socialising, drinking, good food.

Happiest moment of his life:
Happiest moment of my life was probably when Celtic beat Barcelona last year.
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Makes her happy:
Spending time with my grandchild, Teagan

Happiest moment of her life:
When I got married and the birth of my son, Andrew and grandchild Teagan.
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Makes her happy:
I suppose the only thing that really makes me happy is seeing others happy or making other people happy.

Happiest moment of her life:
As for the happiest moment in my life...ive no idea  really hard question.
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Makes him happy:
Getting in from a long shift from work or a massive library session and plugging my headphones and guitar in when i'm home, because it's how I relax, and I play best when I feel i've earned it. Finishing cardio at the gym and then throwing myself in the pool is a great feeling too! So is finishing a long book, and on the other end of the spectrum, being in the middle of a thriving house party.

Happiest moment of his life:
The happiest moment of my life was definitely the first year of Uni, meeting all my housemates and people like you and knowing that I'd made the best decision I've made so far...Watching Iron Maiden at Donnington with 4 joints to myself in a close second.
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Makes him happy:
Not a great deal makes me happy the once in a blue moon that i get to see my son makes me happy but for the most part I’m just content.

Happiest moment of his life:
The first time I held my son.
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Makes him happy:
What makes me happy is just generally having something positive to look forward to, regardless of how major or minor it is. I like to live life with the knowledge of something positive to come, otherwise everything feels a little flat to me. So, yeah, something to look forward to in general.

Happiest moment of his life:
The happiest moment in my life: this isn't one specific moment, but a period of time. I just remember being really happy and content during the autumn of 2007. I'd recently started my final year at high school, it was my favourite time of year, there was a lot of good stuff going on in my life and I just had the feeling that there was a lot good to come, with the changes the next year would bring, etc.
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Makes him happy:
Well what makes me happy, I think one of the main things that makes me happy is when the people around me and the people I love are happy. That I think is one of the main things.

Second I would say spending time with family and friends but I also thing time on my own makes me happy too. So a mix of being with them and being my myself makes me happy.

Seeing good in the world and seeing nature at its finest makes me happy.

And a good night sleep makes me very happy 

Happiest moment of his life:
And the happiest moment of my life I don't think had happened yet  because each year something keeps happening that replaces that.
But meeting Fanny for the first time and graduating are in the top 5 I think haha.
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Makes him happy:
What makes me happy is spending time with my family and getting to see them as much as possible

Happiest moment of his life:
The happiest moment of my life was last year when we went on a week long family holiday to Centre Parcs for my sister's 30th birthday. It was also a great time in my life because I have always wanted us to have a family holiday somewhere and it was probably the best holiday I have ever had.
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Makes her happy:
My automatic reaction was omgosh puppies make me happy!!! Yesspuppies and animals and omgosh rabbits too!!! 

Happiest moment of her life:
One of the happiest moments in my life was when I got my rabbit when I was 5 years old sooo 1996!

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I've found that the most common answer to 'What makes you happy?' are answers related to family and friends, this has been a trend throughout each of my questionnaire tactics. The people who I asked who have more money seem to be the happiest and enjoy the finer things in life like good food and gifts as well as the common answer of spending time with family and friends and those with little money often just picked up on the family and friend answer rather than anything else.

The majority of the older people that I asked said their children and grandchildren were what made them the most happiest and the younger people chose to mention things to related to fun and socializing.

I asked the question 'What was the happiest moment of your life?' because I wanted personal answers where as the question 'What makes you happy?' brought me many of the same collective answers. I wanted to receive answers suggesting small personal things that nobody apart form that person would think of mentioning so my video would have little personal connections to the people that I'd asked.

Questionnaires!

I created small questionnaires that had two questions on them:

What makes you happy?
and
What was the happiest moment in your life?

My aim was to hand them out to a range of different people with different age groups and ways of life, I wouldn't have been able to get a clear idea though as I wasn't asking the people to provide their age nor was I asking them about their backgrounds, it was all based on my judgement.

I began handing the questionnaires out in our Student Union Bar to students, I did this, not only to get an idea of the student views of happiness but also to give me some confidence to head out into Manchester City center to give the questionnaires out to a lot of strangers. Because these two questions are pretty hard to think of an answer for, I gave them out to the people who were sat down, not going anywhere and didn't look busy so they's be able to spend a short while focusing on the questions.

The images above are some of the responses I got from the students in the SU. Overall they express general activities such as drinking, watching football and going on holidays are what make them happy as well as spending time with family and friends. The majority of the student responses seem to be the things that would make us all happy, they don't seem specific or personal to each person.

The image above shows some more answers that I recieved when asking the students in the SU. These, like a few more that I received by students in the SU are all from groups of boys who were sat together. I found that the majority of the groups of boys weren't taking it seriously and just put silly answers. I was hoping not to get a lot of answers like this as it would make it difficult to progress in an honest manner, I wouldn't know what was true and what wasn't, what really made people happy and when people were joking around.

I then made my way to Manchester to ask the general public what their answers would be. I was pretty nervous but was very determined and interested to see what everyone's answers would be so I road on! Since my questionnaires needed time and thought I decided to go to Piccadilly Gardens to hand them out because I thought that would be a good hot spot for people sitting down, on a break from work or just chilling out with their friends, it's not a rushed, fast moving place.

To get these results shown above I asked older people who looked to range from the age of 40 - 75. One of the answers that I found interesting was the bottom left one, it was completed by a 70 odd year old lady, she told me that she was still waiting for the happiest moment of her life to happen, either her life hasn't been a very happy one or she's very optimistic in thinking that something better will always come along! I appreciated this answer because it struck me with something that I didn't expect, it stopped me in my tracks and make me think about my project more. Overall I found that older people are most happy when they're around their family and friends. 

Whilst in Piccadilly Gardens I approached a small group of young adults on what seemed to be a work break, this group of people were very confident, chatty and keen to know about me and my project, they were very honest with their answers unlike what I think the majority that I'd asked had been. I hope to find more people who are confident enough to be completely honest with what makes them happy because more often than not my audience to the video I'll be creating using these results will have these mutual things as to what make them happy which would give them a connection and personal feeling towards what I will be showing. 

There were a very large range of different types of people in Piccadilly Gardens which was useful for what I was aiming to do. At first I received a lot of rejection due to the fact that people didn't know what to write but I moved on until I got enough results. At once point a man came over to me to get me to sign up to a course of talks about further education, I told him I'd sign up if he filled out one of my questionnaires,he agreed so I did what I said I'd do and signed up to what he was promoting...I put down a fake number and got an interesting questionnaire answer from it!

After handing out the questionnaires I had a bit more confidence to yet again attempt to interview a homeless person, I still wanted to do this because I didn't yet know what my final route for this project was going to be and I wanted to keep my options open. I approached 6 homeless man and every one of them said no to the interview even after offering them food/spare change, yet I did persuade them all to fill out one of my questionnaires, I gave them all 30p for doing so. I felt as though I had to give the homeless men money after they filled out my questionnaires because I was getting something out of it too yet I gave the other members of the public nothing for filling them out, this made me think about transactions and returning the favour, I would like to explore this sort of thing more in another, future project.

The image above shows my results after asking 6 homeless men to fill in my questionnaires. The first homeless man that I asked said he couldn't read or write so I offered to write out his answers for him, I sat on the floor with him and asked him the questions, his answer to 'What makes you happy?' was 'anything', I tried to get him to elaborate on his response but he just kept on repeating the word 'anything' so I wrote it down, I then proceeded to asking him 'What was the happiest moment of your life?', I was expecting him to delay his response while he thought about it or for him to tell me he didn't know but right away he said ''Ireland'' so I once again asked him to elaborate, he said it was a holiday he went on with his friends and it was the best time in his life, he didn't tell me when he went or what he did there but I could see from his face that when he was thinking about it, it brought back good memories as he started to smile. I was sat on the floor with this man for about 10 minutes and I know that doesn't seem a long time but when people are walking past you, staring, wondering what you're doing, it seems a lot longer. The floor was cold and uncomfortable and, without sounding horrible, the homeless man didn't smell too pleasant, it's to be expected for someone who lives on the street. He was a nice, polite man who was extremely grateful for the 30p which I handed him for the 10 minutes of his time. After having to write his answers down for him I decided to write all of them apart from one who insisted on writing it for me. The majority of the homeless men expressed their like towards warmth and companionship, just simple things that we take for granted.

I've learnt that the people who are in groups would mostly either write the same answer as their friends or write something silly so if I'm to carry on going in this route I'll make sure to target people sat on their own. I received the results that I imagined I would, the majority of the students answered with things that are related to fun, young adults were confident and truthful, older people wrote all about their family and the homeless people wrote things that most of us might not thin about when thinking of things that make us happy.

I would like to have known more about each person's life and background for my results to have more meaning in the respect that what makes them happy may be influenced by their way of life and age so I will ask my family and friends the same questions because this way I know their backgrounds and ages, this will give me a clearer understanding on what ways of life enjoy what things. By asking people who I know will also allow for them to feel comfortable with me enough to be entirely honest with their answers, once again giving my results more accuracy.