Event Blog 6: Hidden Cameras

For this event I'm going to reflect on some recent work I did as the Technical Director for Topshelf Productions Ltd. The company which produces the television show Target.

I have worked for the company for over two years before deciding to go back to Uni to do the BCT. I was offered some part time work for them a little while back. The job was to build, paint, set up and run a hidden camera trial on road side fruit stalls selling fejioas at $3 dollars bag.

I set up four cameras on the fruit stall one looking up at the person's face, one looking down from a birds eye view, one mounted on a telephone pole to get a wide shot, and a camera on a tripod filming out the back window of my van.

It's was a long weekend. The trial ran for three days. Its was simply an honesty box trial with the idea being to test whether people would pay the correct amount for how much they took if they thought nobody was watching. My job was to write down the number plate of each person that stops to take fruit, then run out to the stall, count the remaining number of bags and the money that was in the honesty box to check whether they paid the correct amount.

Over the course of the three day trial it became quite obvious after selling over 220 bags of fruit that most people were honest and paid or attempted to pay the correct amount. However one standout 'Taker' was a young Maori woman with a car full of children pulling up on the wrong side of the road in a crashed and deregistered car, ripping the box open and stealing all the money along with a few bags of fruit..
After doing this job for many years I have come to the conclusion that it's not fear to judge people, no matter how unacceptable there actions may seem from your perspective. As I believe people reflect there environment.. the old nature vs nurture debate... I think we are all most entirely a result of our nurture and feel people will simply do whatever it takes to survive and many other weird things they are able to justify to themselves through a particular ingrained perspective they have developed...

The concept doesn't really allow for the possibility of 'sin' as no one is completely responsible for there own actions, our personalities and actions are interdependent.