Face to Face with Danni Go
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Project Background:
For our second Bridge project, our task was to interview our assigned partners using our Vertical Interrogation of Strangers questions that we created during our Integrative Seminar 1 class. These questions were to be hard-hitting questions reminiscent of the ones in British-Indian writer Bhanu Kapil’s novel, The vertical interrogation of strangers. Her novel contains interviews she conducted with random strangers. With questions so unique and interesting, she was able to access certain parts of certain strangers’ lives that have never been accessed by they themselves before.
Addressing Funes
Jorge Luis Borges’ “Funes the Memorious” illustrates an unknown narrator’s recollection of the crippled Funes and his ability to remember everything. For him, everything is based off memory. This theme was recreated in my film, where I ask questions that call for remembering. Like Funes, Calista exhibited her ability to remember certain things in order to answer my questions. During the interview, when asking her what she has forgotten or wanting to forget, she says she most likely had already forgotten what she would like to forget. This made me make a connection with the story where it says, “To think is to forget differences, generalize, make abstractions.” When you are asked to think about something in particular, it makes you not only recall what you do remember, but it simultaneously brings up what has momentarily been neglected or forgotten. Sometimes, when we try to remember things from the past, we end up making “abstractions,” not being able to fully grasp every single detail from when a specific thing occurred. Not to say remembering is almost like lying, but in a way, it is not a carbon copy of the original. At times, we might even be unconsciously trying to conceal a memory or detail. This happens in my film when asking Calista who has hurt her the most. She answers herself and leaves it at that, making me ask if she would like to elaborate. This may seem like something to overlook, but to me, it stands out because it shows that we are capable of leaving things unsaid because we choose to not revisit certain things, which leads me back to the quote from the story.
Questions
- What have you forgotten? What would you like to forget?
- Add a question from Memoir paper.
- Recite one line from “Funes the Memorious”.
- Recite a poem or a song you know by heart.
- Recite a number you know by heart (no private numbers like social security etc.) or recite a list of dates/times/math problem/random numbers or anything numeric that comes to mind.
- If your partner has a watch, film them checking the time, otherwise film them looking in each of the cardinal directions (N, S, E, W).
- Ask your partner to show emotion/make a face/or respond in a non-verbal way on camera.
The Work
Shift
A major shift I had to overcome was losing the original Premiere Pro project due to my laptop glitching, therefore having to start from whatever was the last saved version of my video. Because this glitch happened randomly, I could not remember the edits I made, so this leads me into thinking that my project would probably have been different from what it is now if it never glitched.
What I Would Have Done Differently
I would have explored Premiere Pro more. With such a software, possibilities are endless, and I wish I got to experiment with those possibilities. Because I do not have prior experience with using Premiere, it took a while for me to even get the project started. So once I did get it started, I simply paid more attention to getting the project done and making sure I got to edit the whole clip for it to meet the assignment’s requirements.
I also wish I was a bit more creative in the sense of context. I simply made mine to be a typical interview. I wish I changed the context/scene to where it would be an unexpected film documentary, instead of what it is now.
