Hey all!
After much thought and deliberation, I penned and submitted my second (and most recent) draft of my project treatment to my wonderful Documentary Capstone professor, Dr. Lisa Mills.
Dr. Mills provided many helpful comments and questions for me to consider, and ways to make the project stronger and even more clear.
I would like for you to have a chance to read the good
gooshy details of my
mentality, and
strategy for the project and how I hope to accomplish it. Continue reading below for all the 3-ish pages of goodies! ;-)
God bless,
Jonathan ;-)
ReichelJon@gmail.com________________
Jonathan
ReichelDocumentary Capstone I
Submitted Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Treatment Draft #2- TREASURES OF INDIA – (Working Title)
At the core of our being, humanity searches for purpose. We yearn for some reason to exist. We struggle to find personal answers for what we see in the world. I believe people want to know why they exist. Is humanity an act of random chance? Is humanity the result of Divine Design? Is there life after death, or is this life all we have? If there is a God, how does he interact with humanity, or does He at all? This documentary will delve into this interaction, with a focus upon what has come to be known as the concept of "miracles".
In my journey as a filmmaker, I strive to share with my viewers a hope. A hope of something beautiful, a hope of something grand. I strive to bring my audience closer to a personal understanding of what the idea of God means to them, perhaps even help facilitate a moment where they feel a closeness, a peace, a connection to God. A connection to the miraculous.
My film will attempt to document this interaction between God and mankind by exploring the lives of families and groups who claim to have experienced miracles. The film will ultimately lead to New Delhi, India, to observe a native family of believers who claim that God continually works through them to bring forth remarkable miracles of physical, mental, and spiritual healing to the people of their nation.
This film will deal with my own personal conflict of achieving emotional honesty with my viewers, but my film's main conflict is between those who believe in the reality of their miracles, and a world that continually dismisses these remarkable acts as fantasy. My film's point of view (
POV) will be an omnipotent secondary perspective that will provide ongoing narration helping to guide the viewer through the layered events of the film. The subject and
POV suggest a style that is observational. Ultimately, I want viewers to reexamine their beliefs on the concept of the miraculous, and indeed, delve deeper into what is true, and real in their life.
As part of my research, I plan to shoot opening portions of the film locally in Central Florida interviewing various ministry groups and specialists who have medical and practical experience with miracles, and have them share their experiences. By introducing the audience to the issue locally, it will help prepare them for the sweeping location change when I take the audience to my travels in India with Minister
Sangat Bains and his family in New Delhi, India.
I will travel India for over two weeks collecting stories, imagery, footage, and testimonies of miracles being performed. Upon my return to Florida, I will begin
post production and the final crafting and shaping of the film in editing, to establish the specific focus within the presentation's broad arch.
The major difficulties with a project of this subject and magnitude fall into two basic categories: content, and collection. The content of this feature deals with elements that are completely out of my direct control, namely, miracles. A miracle is defined as an event believed to be caused by interposition of divine intervention by a supernatural being in the universe by which the ordinary operation of Nature is overruled, suspended, or modified. This would clearly imply that it is not something that I can plan on, schedule, or suit to fit my needs. My strategy to increase my chances of recording that which I cannot schedule or control, will be to increase the amount of content that I will be able to capture. By extending my stay in India an additional week, and beginning to shoot a third of the introductory portions of the film here locally, I will enhance the total material I have to choose from in editing.
The second aspect of the challenge aforementioned is that of collection. While increasing the amount of total footage will help provide more material to choose from, the footage will be worthless unless I go about collecting the footage in a specific way. The nature of miracles is that they are an answer to very specific and personal needs. If I approach the filming of them in a callous or careless news material gathering mentality, I will be putting people in a place of discomfort. My focus will be to collect these special moments with an air of minimal intrusion, a "fly on the wall" mentality as it were. I feel that an unobtrusive approach to the process will not only capture more realistic interactions, but perhaps even help put people in a place of comfort, knowing that the moment is personal and protected, and readying them to receive whatever miracle might be manifested.
I plan on utilizing my own equipment and editing suits, and anticipate funding for travel and peripherals through a collection of ministry groups domestically operating in support of the
Bains' family's efforts. This film will then be promoted through festival circuits, internationally utilizing web-based distribution, with an additional strong focus on distribution directly to churches across America, to serve as inspirational material for their congregations.
My ultimate purpose in this project is to provide audiences a moment to deeply examine their own feelings and ideas regarding miracles, and the things of God, with hopes that they might more firmly establish themselves in a personal understanding of the great, broad, and beautiful things in life.
