When
speaking to a friend, she mentioned she was going to be visiting her friends
who both had Friedreich's Ataxia. Having never heard of the disease, I
asked some more questions and discovered that some community organizations in
the girls’ area were constructing an addition onto the family's home. Wanting
to help, I figured that a video might aid in raising money.
I
began by researching Friedreich's Ataxia. I read news articles and watched a
couple documentaries relating to the disease. I then shaped some questions
to ask Mary, Sam, and Alex during their interviews. I thought about
visually compelling elements of the construction of a house so as to plan the
best day to shoot. Since framing is the most drastic change between a
foundation and the completion of a home, I phoned the family to ask when
framing was scheduled.
The
big challenge any documentarian faces is trust. Each new piece means a new
relationship with your subject. You need to spend time with them prior to shooting
to ensure that they are going to feel comfortable opening up to you personally.
The other challenge you face is the unreliability of technology. Remembering
that what can go wrong will go wrong is key to maintaining a level head, taking care of issues as they arise, and ensuring your subjects never see you lose
your patience.
I
believe documentary film has the ability to give an audience a true insight
into a specific subject matter. By hearing a social problem directly from the
people it's effecting, it becomes difficult for skeptics to ignore the
people they see on screen, because those people are no longer a number in a statistic. They're no longer
a face in the crowd. They are a human being with whom the audience relates.
