Oak Street Films

I’d like to thank everyone who attended the screenings of Passion Flower, Footprints, and Relearning Everything tonight. Your support of my work–and of the subjects represented in these films–means a lot, and it is times like this in which all of the financial, personal, and creative struggles that come with this profession seem the most worthwhile.

This post is for you. If you’d like to respond to what you saw (or didn’t see) in these films, please feel free to leave a comment. If you’d prefer to speak with me privately you may of course contact me directly. Any comments you might wish to add to this post–which will be publicly visible–are, however, most welcome and appreciated.

It was great to see you tonight. Let’s get together again, when we can.

As the date of next weekend’s shows at Barking Legs Theater approaches–and with it my first real opportunity to share with the public the beginnings of the “documentarian” fork of my career–it seems a good time to talk a little bit about how I try to approach the formidable task of translating others’ real lives into a series of images and sounds, and about the hows and whys of the difference between my methods and those employed by the producers of the dry and overly informative “video brochures” which often appear on cable and/or public television and that are, I feel, erroneously referred to as documentaries. The following remarks were originally to have belonged to a more scholarly kind of essay which I had expected to post to this site, and so I hope that their use here in the context of my simultaneous “plugging” of an upcoming event will not seem overly salesmanlike. They are intended to serve as a kind of preface to the work which will be exhibited on September 6; the intention is to shed some light on what exactly these films attempt to do. Those in the Chattanooga area who already plan on attending will learn a bit about what they will be seeing, and those in the area who are still “on the fence” with respect to their plans for that evening, will, I hope, be able to make a more informed decision.

Incidentally, if you are not in the Chattanooga area and would like to see these films, feel free to contact me and we’ll discuss the ways in which you might be able to do so.

See you after the jump.

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A still from FOOTPRINTS, one of the 3 films to be screened on Sept.6

When Ann Law shot me an email last Fall to ask if I’d be interested in documenting the installation of her tattoo, I had no idea that doing so would turn out to be one of the most transformative experiences of both my professional and personal lives. I knew that she had been fighting Breast Cancer, but initially I had no idea that this tattoo business was in any way related to her illness; I thought that in saying “yes,” I’d simply be doing a favor for a friend and longtime collaborator. Once she and I had talked a bit and the enormity of her choice had begun to sink in, I began to realize that this was a unique opportunity to produce a very interesting and meaningful piece of work. It was only after that film had been completed that I began to realize just how much I enjoyed making documentaries, and that I was suddenly on a new and fruitful creative path.

After several months and several more documentaries, it’s finally time to begin sharing these discoveries with an audience.

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