Story Idea

I've been thinking a lot about what I want the story of my film to be, and how I can tell that story.  Today I was thinking about it, and took a different approach, thinking: What story would I tell if I were making a fiction film about the same subject and theme?

The idea I had was to have two specific characters, an Indian and a Tibetan; the Tibetan comes into India from Tibet in search of refuge and comes into contact with the Indian who helps him get his feet on the ground and start a new life in India. As time goes by, the Tibetan becomes well established, but the Indian runs into hard times. But, the Tibetan, remembering the charity of his Indian friend is now able to turn around and give back to his friend.

This obviously is very basic for a fiction film idea, but for a documentary it is a great start. Before I was thinking about looking at Tibetans and Indians as more of a whole, or a community as opposed to individuals, but I think if I found a couple really great individuals to follow, it could make the story much more personal and touching to the audience.

What I am thinking is that I could find an Indian who helped Tibetans coming into Mcleod Ganj and is now being helped in one way or another by the Tong-Len Charitable Trust Organization (maybe his child goes to one of their schools). It may take a little searching to find the right person, but I don't think it would be too hard to fit into this category. Then, if this person knows personally any Tibetan working for the Tong-Len Organization, this person could become my Tibetan character.

Things may not work out perfectly, but I think that if I can take this route, and focus on just a small handful of individuals, it will make the film much more powerful.

Tibetans Giving Back

Blaine Johnson showed me this website: Tong-Len Charitable Trust a while ago when I was doing some initial research for my project in order to apply for an ORCA grant. I recently went back and looked at the site again and was re-encouraged and excited about my project.

This is an organization formed by a group of Tibetan refugees who "wanted to give something back to the local Indian community who have welcomed and supported them during their time in exile." This is exactly the kind of thing I am interested in for my film: charity being rewarded with more charity. I looked up the word "Tonglen" and found out that it means "giving and recieving", a very appropriate name for this organization.

The organization is not limited to giving any specific help back to the Indian population. They have built and kept up schools, started medical and health programs, and even built showers for communitites. Some of their many accomplishments can be seen here.

This will be a great organization to explore and follow with my film, and can maybe serve as a climax or resolution to the film. The organization headquarters are located in Dharamsala, but a lot of their service occurs in outter villages. I hope I am able to at least document some of their closer efforts to give back to the Indian population. (I'm not quite sure about how far we are allowed to travel within/around/outside of Dharamsala... Jay?)

Questions (continued)

In an earlier entry I talked about the kinds of questions I would need to ask in order to tell my story; not just questions that I have, but questions that my audience will have. Here I will provide a list of some questions that will help to set up and tell the story:

1. Where is this story taking place?
- This is something I know, but not something that most audiences would not know if they were simply to hear the name "Mcleod Ganj" or "Dharam Sala". (And I'm not even sure how to spell those, so that's something I should probably learn.
- A simple way to answer this question for a viewing audience would be to show the location on a map; maybe even a google maps video zooming in on the location from a broader view.

2. Who lives in Mcleod Ganj?
- I will need to establish that there are both Tibetans and Indians living in Mcleod Ganj.

3. Why are their Tibetans in India?
- Before preparing for this field study, I knew nothing of Tibet's flee from Tibet to India and their current refuge there. I am sure some people know why there are Tibetans in India, but I am assuming that the majority of people do not know the backstory to this.
- To answer this question I will need to go into a little more depth. This is something I can probably reveal through interviews with the people of Mcleod Ganj. It would be great to hear the personal story of someone who came directly from Tibet (as opposed to being born in Mcleod Ganj). It would also be interesting to hear the Tibetan's story from the perspective of an Indian living in or near Mcleod Ganj when the Tibetan's started coming to live there.
- I will not want to focus too much of my film's attention on how the Tibetan's came to Mcleod Ganj, but it is still an interesting and important part of the story.

4. What are the differences between Tibetans and Indians?
- This is a very large question and one that I do not know all the answers to yet. Explaining this question will probably take a decent chunk of my film although it will hopefully be mixed in with other details instead of explained all at once.
- Some differences that would be good to look at may include: Culture (that's a very broad one), religion, work, family and community relationships, education, and probably a lot more
- As I do research I will need to come up with more specific questions and methods to show the differences between Tibetans and Indians

5. Do Tibetans and Indians get along? Do they interact? Do they avoid each other? In what ways have Tibetans helped Indians? In what ways have Indians helped Tibetans? What conflicts have risen between the two?
- These questions are now much closer to the main question of my project. This is something I can research to some extent, but a lot of the answers will come from observation in the field.
- Hopefully I will be able to focus most of my time trying to answer these questions.

These are some of the basic questions that I feel are necessary to answer for this project. Please, anyone reading, if there are important questions that you feel you or an audience would like to have answered in regards to my project, whether they be something I skipped over or something that would work in addition, please post your suggestions below.

Thank you.

Source Document Analysis 2

Jared Wilkerson

Fall 2008 or Spring 2009

Beyond Remittances: Husband Migration and its Effects on Wives in Rural Mexico

Journal of Inquiry

Volume 4, 77-96

1. What is the source’s stated purpose (the argument or thesis)?

Husband migration has a negative effect on wives’ gender roles

2. What evidence does the author provide to support his or her main argument? How is the author attempting to logically prove his or her thesis and how does this affect the organization of the document?

                  He has looked at other studies and done many of his own in-depth studies of rural Mexican towns with high migration rates and has interviewed large amounts of people to see how it has effected them.

3. Who is the audience? What does the author assume the audience already knows about the topic?

                  The audience is probably Mexicans and Americans. The audience knows that there is a lot of migration from Mexico to the United States.

4. Describe the author’s methods (i.e. how does the author know what he or she knows)?  In your opinion were they appropriate why or why not?

The author spent 6 months visiting several different rural villages. He interviewed 56 women, half of whom were “senders” and half lived with their husbands. I think this is a pretty good study for his time and resources. 56 is a decent sized number and it’s also good that he could do his study in more than one village.

5. To what other sources (theorist, researchers, artists) does the author refer? Explain the specific ideas the author draws upon from these other sources to support his or her own argument (the theoretical framework).

                 

                  He refers to other researchers who have done the same kind of study and received more or less the same results. Some results were different, but in these he pointed out that they did not have a very big group that they surveyed. His goal was to take what other people had already learned and take it just a little bit further.

6. What are the connections between this source and your project? How useful or applicable is this source’s approach to your own project? How is yours new and different? 

            There is some relation between this and my own project because it is looking at human relations and how they (or the lack of them) change people. My approach will probably not be quite the same, but I will still want to do interviews with people.

Source document Analysis1

Robert D. Swenson

Fall 2008 or maybe Spring 2009 (the book says both)

Hiva Usa: Preserving Sacred Choral Music of Tonga

Journal of Inquiry

Volume 4, 43 - 56

1. What is the source’s stated purpose (the argument or thesis)?

To better understand Hiva Usa and what makes it unique.

2. What evidence does the author provide to support his or her main argument? How is the author attempting to logically prove his or her thesis and how does this affect the organization of the document?

                  He provides the background and history of Tonga and its music, interviews he’s conducted with people about the music, descriptions of the genres defining properties, and in-depth analyses of several Hiva Usa songs.

3. Who is the audience? What does the author assume the audience already knows about the topic?

                  The audience is anybody and everybody, but maybe more specifically people who are interested in Tonga and people who are interested in music. The author assumes that the audience has a basic knowledge of music and different music styles.

4. Describe the author’s methods (i.e. how does the author know what he or she knows)?  In your opinion were they appropriate why or why not?

The author conducted interviews, and analyzed six Hiva Usa songs. I think these methods were appropriate because not only did he listen to and analyze the music using his own knowledge of music, but he talked to natives about what the music was to them; this being, in my mind, much more important than anything he could have analyzed. It would have been nice however, to have a little more of why the Tongan people think their music is special and unique.

5. To what other sources (theorist, researchers, artists) does the author refer? Explain the specific ideas the author draws upon from these other sources to support his or her own argument (the theoretical framework).                 

                  He refers to several Tongan musical and historical experts to help him define Tongan music and its unique qualities. From them he learns the history of Tonga, its music, the meaning of the name “Hiva Usu” and the meaning of the songs.

6. What are the connections between this source and your project? How useful or applicable is this source’s approach to your own project? How is yours new and different? 

            This doesn’t have a whole lot to do with my project, but I liked what he was able to find from his interviews with the native people. I would also like to use this approach of interviewing in making my film. The natives obviously have first hand accounts of what is going on around them and can give better information even than a book or news article.

Tibet's Background

I found a lot of interesting information in today's reading. I of course was not able to read all of it, but what I did read was great. I found that I was especially interested in Tibet's Buddhist religion and the role of the Dalia Lama as a leader and religious figure. This is something that I feel like I would like to learn more about as I study for my project. Knowing what Tibetan's believe within their religion will help me to see how that effects their relationship with Indians living in Mcleod Ganj. And visa versa, it will be important to study Hindu or other Indian religions to see how that effects the local Indians' attitudes toward the Tibetans.

I can see how having different religions could be a very big stumbling block between the two cultures coming together, but I can also see how sharing a simple faith in God could bring the two together. I really need to do more studying before I can say much more, but I am very interested to see what I can find.

Preparing to Respect

Besides preparing for research and the technical sides of our projects, I'm finding that it will also be very important to prepare to respect the people, both in day-to-day life and in how we conduct our projects.

It's great taking a Tibetan and a Hindi class this semester because not only am I learning some of the languages, but I am learning a lot about the cultures and the many ways to show respect within those cultures. I am also taking a documentary class that focuses a lot on the ethics of making a documentary film; things that I will need to know to be respectful in the making of my film while in India and in editing it once we've returned.

I think there will be many other ways to prepare to respect the people as well, such as learning more of their histories and religions; things that I plan to study and look forward to learning more about.

Even though we haven't been to India yet, I'm already developing a great love for the people, their culture, and I hope that I will not be too intimidated to show it when we get there.

So Many Questions!

We've talked a lot about asking questions during these first two weeks of school. I've already written two lists of 25 questions about the field study and one main question to build my project off of. But there are many more questions that I will need to develop.

First, I will need a list of sub-questions that can fall under my main question in order to thoroughly answer it. Here I may also want to even ask some questions that go a little outside of my main question in order to cover general background or questions that might arise from somebody who knows nothing about McLeod Ganj.

Next, I will eventually need to come up with even more detailed and specific questions I can ask the people living in Mcleod Ganj in order to get answers to my sub-questions.

It's a lot of questions to ask, and I won't be able to write them all until I have done more studying, but I should be able to write some here and there as I go and hopefully start giving a more solid structure to my project.

Questions in Storytelling

My question: Will Tibetans and Indians help each other to improve their situations, or will they grow apart, segregating themselves from one another?

Because of the nature of a field "study", we have been focusing intensely on how to prepare for and do research. However, in making a film I would like my project not only to be research, but more importantly to tell a story.

Questions are important in storytelling because when read a story or watch a film, we are constantly asking ourselves, "What will happen to this character", "Will the character succeed?" "Will the character fail?", "Will they get what they want?" or perhaps more importantly, "Will they get what they need?"

We have also talked about the importance of questions in research. The purpose of research is to answer a question. If there is no question to answer, there is not much point in doing research.

I need to have a question that can satisfy research as well as an interesting story. It can't be just any question, because if the question is not interesting, the research and story it creates will likewise not be interesting. It needs to be something in which there are stakes at hand, in which the audience wants the answer to be one thing, but fears it may be another way. If the audience doesn't care which way things will go, then it doesn't much matter to tell them.

My question I have currently developed may not be perfect or complete just yet, but I hope that it will point me in a direction that can tell an interesting story. From what I have researched and heard from other people, there are both good and bad relationships between Tibetans and Indians, but also there are just "non-relationships" or the avoidance of relationships. However, many Indians and Tibetans may have also found ways to serve and help one another. I hope that the study of my question will cause my audience to hope for good relationships between the Tibetans and Indians, but fear their separation or segregation from each other.

Making Decisions

I have a hard time making decisions. Interestingly enough, going on a field study to India somehow didn't seem like a tough decision to make. Sometime last year, Julia and I walked by a booth on campus advertising BYU's field study program. We talked briefly with the person at the booth and found out it would be something we could do together even as a married couple. We went to the informational meeting and pretty soon we found ourselves making plans to go on a field study to India.

For some reason it often seems like these big decisions are easier to make than the little ones. Now that we've chosen to go to India, there have been smaller decisions to make along the way such as when to go, what our projects will be, and how to prepare. The latter of these has been the most difficult for me just recently as I have been choosing what classes to take this semester. I am a film major and hope to be a writer and/or editor one day, so naturally I have been taking writing and editing classes. However, with our decision to go to India, the obvious film project was to make a documentary, something I'm definitely not opposed to, but also not prepared for. So I scrambled this semester, dropping my previously chosen classes to make room for documentary classes. However the toughest decision I had to make came over the past few days:

When applying for winter courses I signed up for both a Tibetan class and a Hindi class since my documentary will involve both Tibetans and Indians. However, I was soon after accepted to a writing class that I had been hoping to take for the past year and a half. The only problem was that this class took place at the same time as my Hindi class. I remained excited for the writing class for at least a week, but at some point I began to wonder if the writing class was actually more important than Hindi. Writing is what I would like to do as a possible life-long career, so of course it would be helpful and not just fun, but I'm going to India THIS summer and if I don't learn some Hindi now I may not be as well prepared as I would have hoped.

I wrestled the idea back and forth in my mind for days. Julia helped me think things over and I contacted several people with experience in the field to get their opinions. When it came down to it I just had to pray. I had already been praying, but I just had to pray more. My prayers seemed to point me in the direction of taking the Hindi class, but I didn't feel super strongly either way. I decided to take the writing class and Julia and I would try to learn some Hindi on our own time. I prayed and announced my decision, and then asked if that would be ok. I felt that it would be... but then I realized what I had asked. I changed the question and instead asked what would be best. I no longer felt that the writing class was the answer, but that the best thing to do was take the Hindi class.

I don't expect to be fluent when we go to India, but I want to be prepared; not so much to communicate, but to love and respect the people I'll be working with. If I want people to work with me I first need to show my respect and I feel like one of the best ways to do this is by trying to learn their language. I hope that by doing this I will make my project more about the people and less about myself.

That was long.