This new journey

So it's kind of ridiculous, isn't it, that nearly halfway into a new semester, with our project half-finished, we finally get around to putting up a new blog and such to keep you all updated on what we're doing. Ah well, such is life. At least I can say our excuse is that we've actually been so busy working on our project that marketing ourselves has become less important, a fact which I can say I'm actually pretty proud of. But we're just now coming to that place, I guess, in which we actually know what we're doing and where we're going and we have enough to share that it might make for some interesting reading, so those of you who aren't our parents can know where we are a bit more often than once in a blue moon, as the saying goes.

Anyway. It's true that our new film is still a documentary, and that it is a documentary about story. Although whenever we try to explain it quickly to people it still feels a bit awkward rolling off of our tongues. Hopefully what follows will put it in a more coherent context for you all.

I don't know if you've happened to notice, but story is everywhere. Every time we pick up a book, turn on the T.V., go to a movie or a play or a dance recital, some kind of story of one sort of another is being told. It may be a true story, or a made-up story; a story about good vs. evil, or a story about what happened to the man whose car was stolen last week. Whenever we tell someone how our day went or what happened to us over lunch, we are telling a story. Whether we are consciously aware of it or not, stories are the fundamental unit of cognitive experience that shape all of human existence, everywhere. Something in us just gets stories, recognizes them and relates to them as easy as our lungs take in oxygen and release carbon dioxide.

So, okay, we like to tell stories. We entertain and communicate with each other. Most people tend to get that far into story and leave it at that. But I still believe that there is something so fascinating in the why we choose to tell stories - why we need to tell them and hear them - and that question is the basic force that drives this documentary. Why are we wired that way? Why do we find stories so compelling? What is it in our stories that tell us who we are? There are deep, universal answers in the stories we tell, and the more Katelyn and I look into this idea the more convinced of that I become.

Much more than just a "storytelling documentary," (which, granted, would be a fascinating piece of work in and of itself) we hope to go beyond storytelling and talk to people who work with all facets of story: historians, anthropologists, psychologists, religious leaders, artists, actors, filmmakers, and whoever else we can get a hold of before our time (and our money, but that's a different issue) run out. So far we have talked to a wide variety of storytellers in four West Coast states about their passion and profession and gotten some great interviews and footage. After September our journey takes us Eastward and we'll try to find more people who don't necessarily work in storytelling to talk to.

As Katelyn said, this blog is for us to tell our story, and we hope that you'll have as much fun reading about it as we have making it.