* Request for suggestions re: Documentary *

2007-06-08

Richard Moore

Friends,

I've been developing a 'treatment' for the 
documentary, and I need to include a detailed 
description of what I'm going to be shooting at 
each location, who I'm going to be interviewing, 
and what I'm going to be discussing with them.

I want to present a comprehensive overview of the 
global situation re/ food & hunger...the 
conditions on the ground, the ecological trends, 
the energy & water aspects, the economic forces, 
the sustainable alternatives, the political 
context, etc. I want people to 'get it' that it's 
a 'whole system' problem', a consequence of the 
growth paradigm in a finite world, the nature of 
our financial systems, etc.

Here's one possible shooting scenario. Let's 
suppose there's an African nation experiencing 
famine, and at the same time it's exporting cash 
crops. I'd want to get stories from the ones 
without food, the ones running the export 
plantations, a relevant government  minister, 
etc., and I'd want to have a couple charts of 
land-use patterns and do the math re/ "Could this 
nation feed itself?", and investigate the 
question, "Why doesn't it?" Here I could envision 
very useful interviews with people like Frances 
Moore Lappé, Michel Chossudovsky, or the fellow 
who wrote "Economic Hit Man"...we could 'follow 
the money' to find where the profits end up, etc.

One strives in film to get a lot out of each 
sequence, multiple elements, because there's 
always so much to say, and so little time. As 
much as possible, I'm trying to convey the whole 
gestalt of  ETM's Chapter 1, the  matrix we live 
in, with the food-crisis story as a vehicle to 
illustrate concretely and dramatically the nature 
of 'the system'.

I'd like to tap into our collective experience 
and collective contacts and see if we can come up 
with some specific locations, and specific people 
or groups, to 'tell the story' of food & 
sustainability in all its dimensions. We want as 
much geographical and cultural diversity as 
possible, and each location must have important 
contributions to make to our unfolding story. 
From a practical point of view, we want to tell 
the whole story using as few locations as 
possible, and focus in on about a half dozen 
articulate experts / authors who together bring 
in a broad spectrum of insights.

Whenever I've launched into a new project, 
whether it be a book or a tour or whatever, I've 
always invited collaboration from you folks. I've 
been very grateful for the responses that have 
come in, and the invaluable contributions people 
have made. We had a saying in our Sufi group, 
that if you work hard and are on the right path, 
the universe will come to your assistance. In 
terms of our collaboration here, I've found that 
the closer I've been to a 'right path', the more 
others have wanted to participate, to share in 
the creative process, to make the project their 
own and make it better.

I believe this documentary is a 'right path' for 
me at this time. And the universe did indeed 
help, in the sense that the structure of the film 
emerged from an intuitive place, with its own 
energy & DNA,  and I didn't begin to understand 
the full potential of the concept until the 
structure was nearly fully formed. It was like a 
surprise gift of just what I wanted but had been 
afraid to hope for, like my first bicycle. And 
once again, the gift was a vehicle.

hope to hear from you,
richard
http://cyberjournal.org
http://EscapingTheMatrix.org