Blog One: Documentary as Action
In an age where media technologies and platforms are more accessible than ever before, making a video – whether it be a vlog of your macronutrient balanced diet as a body builder or a video of Grandma’s twenty year old zit finally being burst – is rather easy. Essentially anyone can do it, often with seemingly little consideration of what broader impact it will bring into the world. It’s a harsh analysis, sure, but there is a lot of static noise in the world of media sources, and sometimes it seems as though not all that much of it matters.
Yes, in our ever increasingly competitive media climate quantity is abound and quality, arguably, is diminishing. But, on the flip side, with this comes the chance to really produce films that matter, curating stories that need to be told, often to people who wouldn’t seek out the story otherwise.
This, really, is what drives me as an aspiring filmmaker – to bring to the fore stories that matter. But I also know from past experiments that merely setting out to make a film about something that “should” matter is different to something that really, genuinely matters to you on a deeper, and more personal level. And thus the idea that “aligning your values to the theme of your film” (Rossi, 2003) in being central to maintaining drive and stamina throughout a documentary film project, is one with which I resonate.
And hence it’s at this juncture that I must beg of myself the question, what is it in my life that I value and how can I reflect on this through film? (Thankfully I am an IN – and introverted intuitive – so contemplating things from this more existential level is something that comes naturally).
- What are the recurring themes in my life that I value most?
Travel, sincerity, genuine people, authentic friendships, fulfilling relationships, truth and honesty, adventure and change, health and wellbeing.
- How do your friends and relatives describe you? Would they agree with your assessments of the aforementioned questions?
Eccentric but loyal and caring.
- What would you do if you only had 24 hours to live? How about six months or one year?
Travel.
- What would you do with a million dollars? What would you do with five million dollars if you had to spend it in less than a year?
Take my family on a holiday to the Mediterranean, visit my Swiss grandma in Canada, buy a house and be both more altruistic and healthier than what most people can afford to be.
