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.

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.