I go to the island of Vinalhaven and ride around in a car with a young woman. We go round and round. She shifts gears and talks. I put a microphone in her face.
Doing documentary feels a bit like stealing souls sometimes. You show up in this person’s life and you start pulling language out of them. You take their words, their thoughts, their insecurities, their innermost conflicts, and you shape it all into something that you slap your name on and present to the world.
But I like to think documentary is more than that. That there’s a reciprocity that happens when you’re sitting there with the documented, with your microphone or your camera or your notebook and pen. An exchange occurs.
The girl whose story I’m telling says she doesn’t write in a journal, but that my listening to her has the same effect as if she did. By telling me her story, she says she’s hoping to shed light on something that people regularly misunderstand about her. I want the final project to somehow reflect that hope.
