Living With ME - Documentary by Thomas McCann

Andy

Andy

Retired committee member
"My name is Thomas McCann and I am a recent Graduate of the Edinburgh Napier University BA Journalism Course. This documentary was created by me and submitted as my Major Project.

ME is a chronic illness which has been under researched and poorly understood for decades, and those who suffer from it have felt both ignored by the medical community and forgotten by society. However, new research into ME is now underway.

This documentary brings together the stories of people with ME, their families and those working to better understand the illness."

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22m long. Chris Ponting makes an appearance.
 
I've watched most of it. I think it's pretty good because it lets people tell their own story without interrupting them with questions. Chris Ponting was very good. My main problem was the sound quality. Even with the sound on my laptop at maximum I couldn't hear the more softly spoken people, and the YouTube subtitles are full of errors. It would be improved if it had proper subtitles available.
 
Sadly i had to give up on it. There is too much background sound over the voices... a humming/low buzzing behind the first lady & then a barking dog & music behind the family. Its impossible for me with sensory overload/sound sensitivity

As @Trish says the youtube subtitles are no good. They struggle with the scottish accent. it'd be great if the sound could be cleaned up or proper subtitles provided.
 
Trish said:
I've watched most of it. I think it's pretty good because it lets people tell their own story without interrupting them with questions. Chris Ponting was very good. My main problem was the sound quality. Even with the sound on my laptop at maximum I couldn't hear the more softly spoken people, and the YouTube subtitles are full of errors. It would be improved if it had proper subtitles available.
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The audio was overall terrible. Whoever produced it should have matched the levels of each recording and piece of music, and amplified the entire audio track so it reached full scale.
 
I didn't find the sound bad; I agree that good captions would help. To start with, I had two versions running at the same time (slightly offset, which was confusing).

Thank you to Thomas and the people who appeared for making the effort and bravely putting themselves out into the world. I thought it was moving, presenting the experience of ME/CFS from a number of angles, including from a daughter of a mother with ME, and from a wife with a husband with ME. I appreciate the promotion of DecodeME. Chris Ponting comes across as compassionate and knowledgeable, which is entirely in line with my impression of him from elsewhere.

In the middle, there is a very sad story about a man who was subjected to some sort of therapy, probably the Lightning Process, which made him think that he had to change the way he was thinking in order to get better.

I guess if I had one criticism, it might be that it doesn't adequately portray the strength of many people with ME/CFS, making it clear that we often can think well and that people with ME/CFS have contributed substantially to making things better. DecodeME is an example of that.

It is wonderful that we have a young journalist who is knowledgeable about ME/CFS and who cares about the issue. I hope we see and hear much more from him.
 
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