Real People | Real Stories

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There was a lot of build-up to the interviewing of our three girls and mothers (and in one case, brother). Scott and I had decided (with help from our filmmaking and all around super creative buddy, Chris Boulton, via Skype) how we were going to go about conducting them based on the following:

1. We want the girls/mothers to simply and as unselfconsciously as possible talk about their everyday lives.
2. We want the girls/mothers to illustrate the pictures with their words as much as the pictures illustrate their words.
3. We want to know who these people are–in the way that as you talk about the movie with a friend after watching it (Oh, please let it be the kind of movie that one feels compelled to discuss afterwards)  you would likely say something along the lines of, “I totally related to Shanta.” Or, “Pragya’s childhood made me miss my own.” Or,  ”Karuna’s story made me want to raise goats.”

Scott was the one who came up with the idea of using bits of footage we have taken of our people to get them to talk about themselves. Chris B. then added to this idea by suggesting we not use actual moving pictures, but frame grabs. So smart. Showing video would have been way too entertaining–the focus would have certainly been lost from the get go.

Still pictures=contemplative.

Moving pictures=What am I going to do or say next? Do I really look like that? I can’t believe I just said that!

I scrubbed through my favorite moments and bits of footage and chose about 25 frame grabs per interview. Scott and I then wrote up topics/questions that went with a group of pictures.

For three of the six interviews, I referred to the questions. For the other half, the pictures did exactly what I had imagined–they just sort of got them talking. I instructed from time to time: “Tell us what we don’t see in the picture.” It didn’t work in all the instances, but when it worked, some really beautiful stuff came out.

Oh, and we made another big interview move: no video–just audio. Risky? The thinking was that microphones disappear more easily than cameras. Anyway, it is going to work. We have a vision and we are stickin’ to it. 

Here is an example…

Shanta: If someone really needs the bathroom while I am washing. I will always share it. But most of my neighbors pretend they don’t have a way to cover themselves and say you can’t come in–no matter how badly you need it.  

Inventing our interview process and then preparing to conduct them did not prepare me, as the interviewer, to process what I got from them. I guess I should say, what the subjects gave to me. I came home from the first day of interviewing feeling completely shattered. I could barely get off the bed to get dinner even though we had not eaten all day.  

I was so happy that the interviews finally happened (despite the transportation strikes), that our idea of using frame grabs is working, that our subjects were so open… But I felt heavy coming back to the hotel–like I was made of rocks.  

I have been so wrapped up in getting these womens’ stories with the camera, that when I finally got to hear them narrate all that we have been capturing–I think I kind of broke for a bit.

Some of what they said surprised me, made me realize how much I leap to conclusions. Most of what they said just made me want to grab hold of them, and tell them how brave and strong they are… and that if there’s any justice in the world OR if karma really happens OR if heaven really exists, they are in for a really BIG TREAT–where they don’t have to lug anymore buckets of water, or pick stones out of any more grains, or stress about what is coming at the next turn. Because they deserve so much more.

But I am wary of their being such things as justice, karma and heaven in the world as a whole. So I just listened hard, touched their knees and smiled warmly, and sympathetically, as though I could imagine what they their lives are like. But really, I can’t. I can’t imagine what their lives are like–even though their lives are living in my camera, and computer, and in my head and heart right now. 

I wonder if Final Cut Pro will help me decipher it all.