Fireside Chat

            I don’t think the finished product showed the effort I put into it. I’m a little disappointed. Most to blame is likely my fear of performing and my fear of editing. I’m afraid of both for the same two reasons, I don’t enjoy the process of either (unless its film editing or editing other peoples writing) and I’m afraid of the dishonesty that feels somewhat inherent to both. “Listening is an Act of Love” appears to be candid and therefore un-manipulated. Its just people talking with no prompting and the animations just are them and what we here is in order, nothing omitted, etc. It’s overly cynical and fearful of me in this specific context, because the video is awfully kind and it’s not nefarious at all. I just feel hesitant, especially as soon as I’m the one doing the making.

I like Mark a lot. What he’s done to fight the trafficking of children is incredible. But, I think that making documentary and activism palatable via narrativization and entertainment infusion and cool packaging is dangerous. By heading down that route, I think we put a bandaid on the problem which is Errol Morris’ claim that people have a stake in not facing the truth. Entertainment as the deliverer of information and donation of funds as the action performed in the face of domination, power, and oppression keep people passive. It makes activism a commodity, a bartering of money for an eased conscience. The world can’t be permanently bettered, opposition in all things, utopias are impossible. But I want to be on the right side of all of this. People need to be made uncomfortable and not in a comfortable way.

None of that really makes a strong argument for why I had a lackluster performance. It was an assignment and I should have just sucked it up and tried my best to perform like I did for the Webspinna Battle. Instead, I tried to write a script that fit information, that I think changes the world if people accept it and act accordingly, into a time limit. I should have tried to be creative in the scripting, in the punctuation of the information by images, etc. There are documentaries like Luc Moullet’s Origins of a Meal, which present information in a strange manner, with performance of some sense involved, in order to further discomfort rather than generate comfort through entertainment. Some of the other students in the fireside chat pulled that off and I’m really proud of them. I wish I’d done more.