Documentary Proposal

When I was a kid, I admit that I may have taken my dad for granted. He helped me swing on swing sets, took me to 50s-themed elementary school dances and he had an endless supply of designated ice cream money. When he fought with me or my mom or my brother, he would usually make things better by the end of the night. He told me to never go to bed angry. He told me other things, too—some more useful than others. He told me to “watch my mouth” and to use toothpaste as an anti-inflammatory pimple-killing paste. I’m not sure how well it worked, but I’ll admit that I tried it once or twice.
My dad had a heart attack in his 40s when I was in high school. He was in the hospital and a rehabilitation center for almost a month. This forced all of us to silently consider the insidious issue of mortality. When he came home, he was different. He didn’t want to talk like we used to. He spoke more loudly and with more urgency. He became irritable and tough to reason with. My mom and brother noticed it, too, but we didn’t discuss it much at first. I continued on with school, my brother grew increasingly involved in IT work and my mom developed hobbies and interests of her own. My dad sought out more solitary activities, preferring computer time to family time. He played solitaire, wore headphones and drifted away from our family’s collective “we.”
Fast forward. This is where we are today. My dad lives in a dream. When he’s awoken, he’s groggy and difficult to relate to. Over the past six years or so, we’ve lived under the same roof but have suffered a complete breakdown in communication. He hardly knows who I’ve become.
I plan to create a short documentary discussing strained relationships between family members and how growth and change affects the family structure. I will do so by reflecting on my own experiences with my father. This video will be about 20 minutes long and the estimated cost of this project is $1, 341.
I am interested in working on a more reflexive documentary, as I have never created non-fiction work in this mode. I have created several short documentary pieces that are journalistic in nature, and have created some short videos about people and their hobbies, but none that force me to be especially self-aware. I plan to speak to my brother, my mom, several extended family members and friends, a psychologist and others who have similar issues with their parents or families. I also plan to include short, monologue-style voice-overs and instances during which I will directly address the audience through the camera. Additionally, I will utilize home video footage from my childhood that exists on VHS tape. I will review these home videos and use them to inspire the direction of my work.
As I begin to think more and more about life after graduation, I realize my current situation with my dad doesn’t make me feel so good. I’m considering moving to Europe, or at least across the country, early next fall, and I’m not sure that I’m comfortable leaving this situation as it is. I don’t want another six years to slip away in silence. I’ve briefly proposed this project idea to both of my parents. My mom fears that this might be “too personal,” that this is not the right avenue to deal with the situation and that it might end up hurting my dad by drudging up feelings that he would rather not face. When I suggested that we be the subjects of my documentary my dad laughed a little, almost nervously, while seated at the computer in my living room. He pretended that he didn’t understand and made some self-effacing remarks about how he wasn’t interesting in order to weasel his way out of participating. This is all part of it. He asked what we would do. I told him that we would hang out and talk about how things have changed between us from when I was younger. Things got quiet, though he told me that if that was what I wanted, he would help out.
In the hours that followed this exchange, he suggested that I consider re-focusing my documentary assignment on everything from the Pan-American Exposition to the dance studio where I took ballet as a kid. I told him that those things weren’t real and he didn’t disagree. I am planning to focus my documentary on something other than my father, directly. Perhaps I will take him up on his alternate subject ideas so that I can ask him all of the questions that I have always wanted the answers to as he is helping me with my project.
I feel that variations of my situation are quite common. Many people suffer from breakdowns in communication between themselves and one or both of their parents for one reason or anoxther. I would like to create this video in order to explore a variety of perspectives of this particular case of communication breakdown and to document the process of rebuilding bonds in hopes that this documentary might prompt others to consider their own relationships with their parents, their role within their family structure and how these may have evolved over their lifetime, for better or for worse.