Three West

Greetings,

Well I’m having an emotional Aries moment right now. HA! :) I’m kinda living in the moment these days and I’m back to the good side of my life path.

I’m still editing these docs I just filmed. But the more I edit them, the more I learn and the more I realize the value of certain things I’ve done over the years and my own way of life. Take for instance, the documentary on the twins. They initially didn’t think their lives were interesting enough for a film. I don’t know if they’ve changed their minds but I think the story of their lives is even more valuable than I originally thought. As I was going through and making my first round of trims, at the end of each day, I feel like something good has swirled around in my brain. But today as I went through their individual interviews it was just … well this was it. That is what I was looking for, for this film. What I mean is, what I came away with in the end is, this family represents what it means to love a group of people who are your family and friends in a way that is not distorted. The way they care for each other is pretty cut and dry. Their relationship to each other is absent of desperation and possessiveness. These two things I see in relationships all the time and what you get then is this really distorted dysfunctional needy love. Of course this family needs each other but not in a dysfunctional way. And it would seem everyone knows what their responsibilities are and accepts them. I think for me, it was just very cool to witness that because I just haven’t seen it a whole lot during my lifetime and this films says “This functional love is possible, and this is what it looks like when it exists”. It’s not perfect; it’s just honest and free of the underlying malice that is present in a lot of relationships and families. And so I feel like if I can get that from this film then it should be of value to at least some people.

The thing I’ve been brainstorming about also is the possibility of releasing this film in different formats. It occurred to me that everyone spoke in whole concepts which to me is perfect and I feel captivated by their answers. But upon looking at tons of other documentaries, I noticed that they seem to be put together for people with short attention spans. Commentary from interviewees are very short. Usually just like two or three sentences per shot and then I was like… how in the hell am I going to break up whole concepts …. hahahaha So I think what I’ll do is release the film in a couple of different ways for the different types. I’ll do the short attention span standard and then I’ll do one based on the full concepts as they are presented and perhaps that will be for folks like myself and for the academic world.

Also, I feel the doc about Albinism is very cut and dry and I should be able to put that one together fairly easily but I’m kinda sleepin on it a little right now …

1. I’m debating on if I want to do an interview for it and talk about what I’ve witnessed and experienced from the social side of having been friends with Charise and being her friend all these years. But my concern there is hurting feelings or for folks to not understand that it’s just my perspective and I’m not making the statements as if they are anything but my own perspective.

2. I’m debating on if I’m going to see if the black woman with Albinism in my neighborhood would like to be interviewed and added to the film.

I do hope I can decide on both soon.

While I’m feeling chatty… I was watching one of my favorite movies, “Nuts” with Barbara Streisand (?) and Richard Dryfuss, and listening to the audio commentary. She produced the movie so she did the commentary. And she was talking about how hard it is to for people to want to hear the truth and how strange that is… and I was reflecting on that and …yeah, people don’t like hearing the truth even if you put it nicely and do your best to let them know that no matter what the truth is, you are going to support them and still love them, etc. Which to me should make dealing with the truth easier. On one hand I can see how hearing the truth may be painful and there is nothing one can do about it (like if someone dies or something) but it would seem in some cases that what may make wanting to hear the truth uncomfortable is a fear of the consequences or being left out there or unsupported once you hear it. So then I would think that if you show the person (telling isn’t enough) that you can handle the reality together, that they would at least go ahead and hear it but… nah. They don’t. odd creatures we are.

Anyway, it is a very good movie. It has a lot of really good concepts about how we treat each other, how people can appear to be one way and really be piles of shit in reality, and also it deals with mental illness, normalcy, and childhood trauma but not in the ways you’d expect.

This just had me thinking because I always try to be honest but at the same time, be kind about it and supportive where needed but sometimes its a struggle because I realize folks don’t want to hear it and/or they may feel back stabbed or something and I don’t want to act like my need to say what I want to say should be put before the reality that they may feel sideswiped or something. So if I’m going to be honest I need to assess the validity, worth and method. Of course I’m not talking about choosing to be dishonest over being honest, I’m talking about knowing when to be honest and doing it in a dignified way.

Anyway, my Aries moment has passed and I’m going back to editing.

Cheers!