Write up For IndieGoGo

Due to the inordinately high cost of film development and digital transfer, along with all the other surprise expenses for our film, Michelle and I are starting an IndieGoGo account. As soon as it's live I'll post the url. For now though, enjoy my write up for our Story and our Impact:

Our Story

Michelle and I are undergraduate film studies majors at UNC Wilmington. The Holisticmarks our third project together, a senior thesis film about how individuals perceive and engage with the idea of religion. The beginnings of this concept started with my dissastification with our first film, in which we served as underlings on a fledgilng documentary about something neither of us held interest in: the public perceptions of tow truck drivers (riveting stuff, I know). Halfway through our short documentary Towed Away, I made myself a promise never to make another film I was not passionate about.

This lead me to question what I was passionate about, and I had to admit that religion always held a peculiar fascination to me. I was interested in the idea of the abstract notion of the religion: the ineffable quality of belief that escapes definition, a feeling of grace that lies beyond the dogma of the church. Having grown to appreciate Michelle as an artist and a close friend, I approached her with the idea of constructing an experimental documentary in which we would explore this concept. Thankfully she eagerly followed me on this bizarre, year long film adventure, patiently waiting for our film to take shape from what I originally imagined to what it was meant to be.

The Impact

The problem with deciding exactly what I wanted to express with religion was that I was only one person. And yet, we both interviewed several different people from all walks of life, somehow imagining that their views could conveniently line up with mine. As you might imagine, the interviews did not happen according to my design. Instead, they organically took the form of a series of unique reflections on universal concerns about religion and our place in the world.

I believe this project is important because it addresses a subject that is integral to all our lives but that we seldom discuss in an open and honest way. Consequently, and in its own way, The Holistic provides a voice for the very substance of our beliefs, showing that we have more in common with each other than we might have thought.

The Beginning of the END!

My project has been a monster of my own making. Most of my interviews average to about an hour, featuring an honest conversation about religion, only loosely guided by my hand as a director. I tried to allow new avenues to develop in the conversations, rooting my questions in ideas about different aspects of religion and how we feel about those religious components in the beginning and toward the end of our lives. Now, I find myself ready to edit together a behemoth 16-17 odd hours of interview footage to maybe 3 or so hours of abstract imagery, resulting in a 12-16 minute final film.

My greatest challenge so far has been shaking loose the remaining production tasks and getting myself into a post-production mindset. In my mind, the edit is reasonably simple. I don't want anything too busy, I want something stripped down and meditative, allowing the audience to slowly develop associations between imagery and audio. Additionally, I want to set up a sort of percussive rhythm between audio and silence/sound design and imagery and darkness. I also want to use cameraless without joining audio because I don't want to distract one component from the other. Of course, the trouble is that my cameraless has yet to be completed and I am just now finishing up my interviews. It's a little difficult gaining a full idea of the direction of the project while I'm still getting vital components (the academic perspective). Luckily, I just got an interview with Theology professor and I'm in the process of setting up an interview with a Literature professor and so I will be in a position to switch gears soon.

I'm probably too enamored by this project but I know Michelle will keep me grounded. I look forward to discovering the final shape The Holistic will take.