Thoughts

Over the last week I’ve edited and re-edited the script to my film trying to get it to the right place. But I’m having a hard time looking past the basic events and interviews and really seeing the story and the theme. So I decided to back things up, ask myself some questions and see if that could guide my thoughts any better. This blog post is not eloquently written or originally meant for an audience. It’s just me trying to get my thoughts out. But it’s all part of the filmmaking process, and so I figured, why not share it? I actually recommend it to anyone who is having trouble organizing their thoughts. Just sit down and write it out. It really helps.

Here are the questions I asked myself:

What first drew my attention to the idea of my film?

What is the theme of this film?

What do I hope to accomplish with this film?

What is the story?

Here are my answers:

I think it was when I first learned that there were Tibetans and Indians living side by side in Dharamsala that I almost naturally just wondered what their relationship was like. Why are relationships between cultures or races interesting to me? I’m not exactly sure, I don’t know much about the world or the politics of it and I don’t even have many friends who are anything other than white Americans. However, I did serve a mission for two years in Mexico and got to see things from Mexico’s point of view. And since then I have taken some interest in the whole illegal immigration issue and noticed a lot of the terrible ways we Americans think or treat or talk about Mexicans in our country. It seems like out country always has some group to be racist against. We keep claiming that we’ve moved past it, but really we just move on to a different group of people or a different type of racism.

Tibetans are not illegal immigrants (usually); they are refugees, but I don’t think it really matters how two races or cultures end up living together as much as how they choose to live once they are together.

So what is the theme of my film? I think or I hope that it might be that racial, cultural, and other boundaries are erased the more you spend time with those people of different backgrounds. The film gives two good examples, a Tibetan monk helping Indian children and an Indian lawyer helping Tibetan refugees. However, without my acknowledging and poking and prodding at it, I don’t think these two men hardly realize that they are helping to better the relationship between Tibetans and Indians. To them they are just helping people because that’s what they like to do. This makes my job both difficult and easy. Difficult because they are not thinking about the people they are helping the way I originally saw it. I ask Jamyang, the Tibetan Monk, “Why are you helping Indians specifically?”, he answers, “I’m a monk and I believe in helping people, so when I saw these people in need I wanted to help them…” no where near what I had thought up when researching his organization before coming  to India. I could have sworn his answer to that question was going to be, “India has helped Tibetans so much that I wanted to do something to give back to Indians.” But because of Jamyang’s and also Vinayak’s true points of view, it makes it that much easier to prove the theme or idea that working with others erases boundaries, because they’ve already done that!

I think the trick is just figuring out exactly how to show that. I may just have to get them to say it, which would be the easiest way, or at least get them to say something that would lead the viewer to make that conclusion. Hopefully a lot of their answers may lead to that conclusion, but then I have to be very careful with the questions I ask to make sure they have the ability to give those kinds of answers. I think it’s also something that can been seen in observation, but in such a short video it may be harder to see.

I want the final film to be something that really makes people say, “hey, what these people have accomplished is really cool. I’m going to try and get to know more people from different backgrounds, cultures, religions, than myself.” Of course not everybody has an easy way to do that right off the bat, and so I also hope to propose a few ways that people can get out and meet others different than themselves. I hope to do this simply by asking people in interviews, “if you don’t regularly interact with people of different backgrounds, what could you do to get to know them better?” I don’t know what the answers I will get yet, but if I was asked the question, based on what I’ve seen here, I may suggest doing some volunteer work with a group that helps people of different backgrounds, or evaluating your current job and seeing if there’s any way you could use it to accommodate and help people different from yourself. Also just to being willing to talk to people and really trying to get to know them, or even taking the time on your own to read and learn more about another culture, religion, etc. I think any of these things could be helpful and I hope to find even more answers through my interviews.

As for the story, there isn’t a lot of conflict, but there is a lot that’s interesting to observe, and also some very interesting stories to hear from the film’s characters. Because of the location and the people, and what they are doing, I think right there the film already has a lot to grab people’s attention. But if I don’t keep the attention throughout the film, that could be bad news.  Conflict definitely helps to keep attention, but if I don’t have that, what can I use? Well, real-life always has conflict to it, so I think through observational stories I can naturally find some little bits of conflict, and also just through getting people to tell interesting stories with conflict. It may not be an overall conflict to the entire film, but if I can give lots of little mini-stories, each with their own problems, I think that could be just as interesting. For example, this weekend I was at the children’s hostel, filming them moving some of their things to take them to the new hostel. Some of the girls were trying to pick up some boxes, but they were too heavy and falling apart. So they all got together, tied them up with string and then all worked together to pick up the boxes. Right there you have a little miniature story with some conflict to it. I know it’s not a lot, but it’s better than just watching some people carrying boxes out of a room. And if I find enough of these little stories, I think it could make the film work.

Anyway, I think I will stop there for now… but I feel like this has been helpful and I will now go over my script again to see if this added direction can help me at all.

Of course, any comments or advice to what I have just said is more than welcome. I could always use it! Thanks.