Thank you for the swift response. I am glad you are interested in talking to us! For our Collaborative Design course, we are first meeting people in our people group (in this case, Amateur and Independent Filmmakers) to learn about them, co-design something (the sky is the limit for this), and present a design proposal for something that would benefit our people group. The objective of this course is to develop our professional skills, such as communication, and to learn by experience how to design the correct thing that people need (not just guess for them). Our people group is amateur and independent filmmakers because we are very interested in learning more about filmmakers!
We’d like to do a casual interview with you to get a better understanding of what filmmakers do, ideally in person, to be better immersed in your work environment. While we are not a research team, we do have an approval statement that formally outlines time commitments, purpose, and compensation. That is attached to this email. Approval Statement TL;DR: We cannot provide compensation for your time; we would like to interview you for an hour or so, and this would be all for educational purposes with the goal of learning how to design for people.
Please let us know when and where we can talk to you in person! We are flexible with our schedules.
Also, please pass on our information to other filmmakers you know and are willing to chat a bit. We’d like to talk to them as well!
Henry, Ben, Jake, Tchenzie, Liam
B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering
Second-Year Student | Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering
Firma Principal, Versión 1.8 - 19 de Agosto, 2025 a las 14:49 CST
[FROM AN EXTERNAL SENDER]
Hi Henry, Tchenzie, Ben, Liam, and Jake!
I’m delighted to get your message!
I’d be happy to help however I can. I started filmmaking right around your age! All too happy to offer whatever intel I can to boost you forward.
I’d love to hear more about your Collaborative Design Course, and how I can answer questions that will help with your project. I wasn’t super clear, did you want me to come speak in your class? Or just as an interview for your group project? I’m happy to help either way, just wanted to know.
Send me more info when you get a chance! Maybe a list of questions I can answer right away. Or we can set up a quick call to see how best I can help, if talking is faster than typing.
Julia
_________________________________
Julia Tutko-Balena
Head of Friendly Filmmaker
CEO of TuBa Creations, LLC - a multimedia company
_________________________________________
Name: Henry Tejada Deras
Email: htejada@olin.edu
Message: Hello Julia! We (5 undergraduate students at Olin College) are very interested in learning about independent and amateur filmmakers! As part of our collaborative design course, we are engaging with filmmakers to both learn about the experience and practice user-oriented design. We are interested in all things related to how you make your films, from casting to production to audio. We would love to ask you questions in person and see what you do firsthand, ideally for about 60 minutes. If in person doesn’t work, calling online would still be hugely helpful. Thank you! Henry, Tchenzie, Ben, Liam, Jake <Approval Statement.pdf>