Hard Times in Documentary-land

Documentiares are hard.

Boo hoo, poor me, I know. I'm not looking for sympathy, just expressing a fact. Hear me out:

What makes documentaries particulary hard... well there are many reasons. But the one I'm currently faced with is when one of your most fascinating of characters becomes unreachable or uncooperative. You've met them, fallen in love with their stories, begun to imagine the film in your head... it's all coming together and becoming something REAL. A concept really is just a broad stroke until you meet the actual characters that will colour in the intriguing details and intricacies to make a glorious and rich portrait of a story.

And suddenly, your character is M.I.A.

While the same thing happens with actors on dramas and crew across-the-board, it is much more of a blow when you are creating a story that isn't just a figment of your imagination and is all about capturing a person and journey that organically exist. It's not quite so easy to "cast" a new face with a documentary.

I really am mastering the technique of letting "characters" know that they will really need to treat me as a personal friend fairly quickly (without the years of history to fall back on). Once I'm shooting, I find it easy to acheive this...but it's in the early stages when you're conversing via phone, trying to get into someone's head and anticipate the storyline/shoot schedule that it's always a challenge... getting people to open up and let you in.

The other point that I find is crucial to emphasize to a "character" is that no matter how much anticipated "fun" they think the whole process will be, in actuality it is also very long, tiring, and far more involved then they are expecting... and that they will realize all of this fairly quickly once we start filming.

While there are filmmakers who take a truly organic approach and camp out with their subjects, tagging along with them on-and-off for years (lending an incredible level of intimacy to the story), I have not found myself in this situation yet. So, all one can really do is try to ramp up the "getting to know each other" process and hope that the film doesn't suffer as a result.

Currently, I'm holding my breath over a character -- I can appreciate what it's like to try to run a new business and deal with the day-to-day, seeing the potential for a documentary to capture your ups-and-downs but not fully sure how to prioritize it with the million of other tasks demanding your attention. I'm smitten -- like a gal who's made it through the first date, I'm already sufficiently enamoured that it's not quite so easy to walk away anymore. So I wait... and reluctantly start to reconsider my options to give someone a shot that didn't grab my heart from the get-go....

In more exciting news, I've stumbled upon a potential goldmine of a story!

A young Greek-American pop star with a Mediterranean shape, who's trying to make it in the biz, without losing herself (and her healthy, fit physique) in the process. Talk about a last minute find -- my development deadline is a few mere days away! I'm flying out to NYC for a day next week...

Which brings me to a new source of stress. Just how do you manage a day trip when half of the contents of your purse are no longer allowed to be accompanied with you on board the plane?

Guess it will be my little baggie of cosmetics going around the luggage carousel with all of the hulking Samsonite 25-pounder suitcases.

What can you do?