After reading Kirsten Johnson’s Director’s Statement from Cameraperson I could relate it back to the class we had two weeks back. When Drew Swedberg came to show us his film Running for Humanity, I was impressed by the way he went with his gut instincts about what he should and should not have included in his film. He mentioned that how the man who he was filming wanted to constantly tell him what to film and how to edit his documentary. I even remember him saying that if he was sitting behind him while he edited the documentary together, Running for Humanity would have never came out like it did.
This reminded me of when Kirsten Johnson stated that one challenge of documentary making is when she “fails to see or follow stories the director I works for hopes I will follow.” It is very hard to have creative differences with someone who you are working with because you just want to make it the way you think would look best. This is something that makes it challenging to work in groups because there are so many different opinions on how to stitch a story together.
Kirsten’s quote is not only true of a director, but of anyone who you might be working with. Working in teams of people both have their advantages and disadvantages; more people to help do the work, but also more conflicting opinions. I have been enjoying my experiences working with other members of our doc class so far and am excited to work on our group documentary.