Parable
When I experience a really good film...a really good story. It snaps me out of it. It reminds me of something. It makes me want to be better. It inspires me to change.
(I think maybe that is why I always wanted to tell stories because I am constantly asking myself: How can I inspire change?)
What stories have changed my life? Mostly films. (Actually Star Trek: The Next Generation speaks to me in the back of my head on a semi-daily basis.)
And among film...I feel like mostly documentaries.
(Which is one of the main reasons I chose to become a documentary filmmaker.)
What films?...Super Size me, Food Inc...
By using science and first-person documentary stories to pull the veil back on issues that I was hugely interested in but only had conjecture and access to real information about these subjects . I think they inspire change by making us feel that by not acting we are harming ourselves or others.
Michael Moore does this with almost all of his film...Sicko, and Capitalism: A Love Story and Fahrenheit 911.
His films (and many like them) inform the audience with little pieces of a bigger puzzle, painting the picture of a large injustice/villian and motivating us to burn it down/stop-supporting-it.
What do these films and Star Trek have in common? They are about being better than we are. Using stories to motivate us. Using stories to inspire us to eat better, treat others better, try harder, think smarter, or stop doing something that isn’t serving us.
Considering all of this...
If you could only tell one story what would you say?
