Interview with Dimitri Doganis for The Secret Life of Students

19 June 2014

 

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This summer, The Secret Life of Students will bring undergraduate life to the screens with a keener focus and more insight than ever before, thanks to a revolutionary new documentary format. Here, the co-exec producer and founder of production company Raw, Dimitri Doganis, reveals more about the series, its remarkable technology, and what life is like for students today.

 

Explain a bit about The Secret Life of Students – what’s the concept behind the series?

With almost half of all young Britons now going to University, the aim of the series was to explore contemporary student life.  Technology has completely changed how today's undergraduates experience campus life - smartphones allow them to connect with each other, and their friends back home, far more than ever before and in completely new ways; it's no coincidence that Facebook was born on a University campus. So we decided to use this technology to explore how student lives have changed.

 

You have amazing access to social media and, in particular, to the students’ text messages. How does that work?

We've created a new piece of technology called the Digital Rig (D:Rig) which was developed under our Head of Development Tim Wardle and my co Exec Producer Lucy Willis.  The D:Rig allows contributors to share their digital communications with the documentary production team.  The system comprises customised mobile phones given to each contributor which, with their consent (and the explicit consent of those they communicate with), will send their data – including voice calls, text messages, Facebook posts, photographs and  internet search history – back to a secure central server in near real time.  The data on this server is viewed and processed by a dedicated team of D:Rig researchers and producers, who use it to inform what observational documentary teams are filming on the ground.  The data is archived so that it can be used in the edit, where graphics integrate texts, google searches etc, directly into the documentary footage. 

 

With docs like 24 Hours in A&E and Educating Yorkshire, we’ve had very intimate, fly-on-the-wall access in the past. Is this the next level in that evolution?

We're certainly seeing it as a new evolution in terms of the relationship between contributors and production teams, and it has the potential to change how observational documentary series are made.  While the camera rig from 24 Hours in A&E captures intimate moments over a very short space of time, the D:Rig allows us access to contributors' thoughts and behaviours over a much longer period.

 

Has anything like this been done anywhere in the world before?

Not as far as we are aware.  The system took 9 months to develop and required considerable investment and specialist knowledge to build.

 

What was the set-up, in terms of filming? Is it a mixture of fixed rig, traditional camera crew and self-filmed?

The majority of filming was by traditional observational crews, but contributors also filmed parts of it on their mobile phones.

 

How and why did you choose Leicester Uni? And how did you then choose the particular students?

We met with a large number of universities who were interested in the project.  We ultimately chose Leicester because it had a great campus, a diverse student population, and academically is ranked as one of the top universities in Briton - so we knew we'd be getting intelligent, articulate undergraduates. We wanted to have contributors who felt representative of the wider student population, rather than on one extreme or another.

 

Were there many students who refused to be filmed?

At the beginning of term, we tried to make sure that everyone at the university knew as much about the project as possible and soon the crews became a familiar sight in the halls of residence, the union and lecture theatres. As with any production, a few people contacted us to say they didn’t want to be filmed but in general, the students and staff at Leicester were incredibly welcoming and open to filming.

 

Do you think the experience of being a student is very different from how it was for past generations? Or is it all pretty much the same?

Coming to university is often the first real taste of freedom for many students. All the highs and lows that come with that transition from childhood to adulthood are the same as ever. However there are also significant differences: the advent of smartphones and social media mean that now students are able to take their old friendship groups with them to university and communicate their experiences instantly with them. Social media also means that now many students have ‘met’ on-line before they even arrive on campus. Another striking difference we witnessed was the impact of the cost of studying, which seems to make students much more focused on the value of an experience they are paying upwards of £9,000 a year for.

 

They are all quite driven, academically, aren’t they?

Yes, that’s partly because Leicester is a good university but paying £9,000 per year certainly seems to focus the mind.

 

You’re dealing with young people, who don’t necessarily make the best decisions all the time, particularly when they’re drunk. Did you have any misgivings about showing stuff that might reflect on them very badly?

There’s always a balance to be struck between showing material that may reflect unfavourably on young people and being truthful about what happened. As a rule of thumb, we were careful about any material that would cause them undue distress or negatively impact on their futures.

The students taking part in the series did so after extensive discussion with both them and also their parents; we explained not only the filming but particularly the digital aspect of the series. The contributors were also screened by a psychologist before filming. The students had the opportunity to watch the programmes before broadcast and wherever possible we accommodated their comments and any concerns. This is an important series which attempts to address not only the reality of student life but also a really interesting contemporary theme – how people communicate, manage their relationships and interact in this digital age. We wanted to produce something which is honest and accurately represents the experiences that the students went through, but as you will see from the programmes which also has real heart

 

Was there any stuff you didn’t show to protect people?

Absolutely. As programme makers, we make very careful choices about the material that goes into the final programme.

 

Did you ever have students come to you to ask you not to show something?

Yes. We have an open dialogue with all of our contributors and the relationships we build up mean that our contributors can talk to us openly if they are feeling anxious about anything.

 

Young people are incredibly tech savvy and media-aware. Do you think they ever really forgot they were on camera?

In general, all contributors are increasingly media-aware but it helps that we filmed our young people over a decent period of time and they were able to build up good relationships with the crew on the ground.

 

Did those who were being filmed turn into campus celebrities?

They weren’t quite campus celebrities but there was a general interest in the filming amongst the students on campus.

 

Were you particularly surprised by anything you filmed during the series, or was it largely as you’d expected?

The quantity and content of the students’ social media was surprising. Their lives really do play out in parallel on their mobiles, much more so than for older generations who haven’t grown up with Facebook and twitter.

  

The Secret Life of Students is on Channel 4 on Thursday 3rd July at 10pm.