Documentaries don't have to be so boring

In the last couple months I have done a lot of thinking and reading about documentary films. I have also watched more documentaries than usual, even though many of them are completely unmoving and boring. And with all the attention I've given to the concept of documentary film, one thing has stood out both in the books I've read and the documentaries I've watched: interviews.

I can only guess what kind of imagery comes to mind for most people when confronted with the word 'documentary,' but I suspect it goes something like this: People talking, interviews, yap yap yappity yap, [snore], etc. And if that is how the average person thinks about documentary, I'd say it's because most documentaries seem to be nothing more than a series of interviews. Instead of showing something interesting, they show somebody talking about something that may have been interesting. Then, when they're not showing some boring interview, they clutter everything up with narration.

(This actually just occurred to me, but I think bad documentaries are what come to mind when most people process the word 'documentary.' And although most everyone has surely seen at least one good documentary, they probably don't even think of good documentaries as documentaries at all; they probably just think of them as another good movie.)

Anyway, there is no doubt that documentaries tend to rely heavily on interviews. And only rarely does a documentary come along that realizes any kind of box office success.

Is it cause and effect or is it just correlation? Well, it's definitely correlation, but I imagine it's also a case of cause and effect. However, it is impossible to compare documentaries to feature films because they don't have the same objectives. While feature films appeal to our emotions and sense of humor, they also depend on visual effects and audio effects and other effects requiring a theater atmosphere. Documentaries depend almost 100% on the story and the visual evidence; even poor quality visual evidence. Also, documentaries don't come with all the bells and whistles and special stuff that can only translate well in a theater, so they don't require that theater atmosphere. Additionally, they cost a lot less to produce, so success can be defined on a completely different scale.

Regardless of all that, some documentaries have managed to do well in theaters; Fahrenheit 9/11 and Hoop Dreams are a couple that come to mind. And for a documentary to even make it into theaters pretty much means it has succeeded beyond anyone's reasonable expectations and made a lot of money. So why have a few managed to find such huge success while most others linger in some kind of purgatory? Here's why: Because it takes a lot more than pointing a camera at stuff to make a compelling documentary, yet it does not necessarily require photographic expertise.

Great documentaries tell great new stories; they don't just provide a new medium for old news, like so many historical documentaries. ("Here's a book about some historical event; let's make a film telling the same story, showing the same still pictures." Mega boring!) Great documentaries have great characters. Great documentaries are made by passionate, enthusiastic individuals who disregard "conventional wisdom" and write their own rules. Great documentaries are made by people who have an eye for interesting things other people never notice. Great documentaries are made by people like me.

More about this stuff soon.

Me Me Me

I've been struggling a bit with the reality that Aimless seems to be more about me than it is about what I'm creating. I feel like the web site is very similar to a personal home page in a lot of ways, projecting a message of "Look at me. Listen to me. Give to me. ME ME ME!" And to be totally honest with y'all, I'm very uncomfortable making myself so visible to the world; I generally like to remain in the periphery, not attracting much attention to myself.

The original incarnation of the Aimless idea could have been described as purely a travel documentary--an attempt to recreate an experience similar to that of the characters in Rain Man or Easy Rider. It was to be almost exclusively about the people, places, and things I would see, with me remaining behind the camera most of the time. But as I thought about it, I realized that's not enough. That would be interesting but not compelling, so I had to rethink some things.

As I continued thinking about making a documentary, I realized this project had everything to do with me and my unique life experiences. While there are certainly plenty of interesting people and places out there for me to find and document, this is my story, and my story is pretty damn interesting, too. So I'll tell your story and my story both. In fact, I really don't know yet what story I'll tell because the story cannot be told until the story has occurred. This blog entry is part of the story, but it's not part of the film, just as my life is part of the story but may not be part of the film.

Anyway, I don't like being the center of attention. I don't even talk to people much anymore because I realize most people can't identify with me. And because I've spent so much time in isolation over the last two years, my social skills are not exactly sharp. So why am I all of a sudden forcing myself upon the world, sending dozens or hundreds or thousands of e-mails to people, inviting them to look at my web site?

It's not because I crave attention; it's because I need to learn how to seek the right kind of attention. I need to learn how to not care so much about what people think of me. I need to learn how to communicate my ideas better. Call me a whiner if you want, but I need to try to undo the psychological damage originating from way back in high school, when my parents and teachers treated me like a worthless fuck-up.

Aimless is taking this form because I have something really special to offer the world, but I have to pass a lot of my own tests before I can give it to them.

I don't know how it feels to trade money for goods and services because I've never really had any money. And I don't know how it feels to trade any other kind of personal asset for anything of value because no one has ever taken me seriously or traded fairly with me.

I have no reason to believe in humanity anymore, and Aimless will either give me reason to believe or it will kill me. Either way I win.

Sometimes you just have to say "Fuck it" and face your fears. Right now is a good example: This entry does not say what I intended to say when I began writing it; I think it is some of the worst writing I have ever done. But I'm going to post it anyway because right now it's time to say "Fuck it."

Fuck it.

Ready for NCAA Football?

Copied from a Sporting News forum:

I love posts where OSU & UM fans go head to head. Always great arguments in debatably the best rivalry in college football!!

The Backyard Brawl (WVU vs. Pitt), which is our biggest rival game, doesn't compare to the hatred between UM/OSU. I love it!!

Not exactly Aimless-related, but I created Aimless and I am a Buckeye. And although I respect The State Up North and its football team, I'm happy to know that both us and our rivals are respected by outsiders for having such a healthy hate/hate relationship.

Boy it's going to be fun watching Buckeye football this year. People are making a big deal about OSU's defense losing 9 starters, but there are two reasons it will not matter: 1) Ohio State produces a great defense every year, regardless of how many starters return, and 2) OSU's offense will be unstoppable this year. (Remember 617 total yards, Notre Dame? Ain't nobody ever done that to you before. And all but a couple of those guys are back.)

Yeah, "we" really like playing in Arizona in January. It's becoming a tradition and I don't see anything changing next January.

Time to get soliciting again

In late June I sent out 40 or 50 solicitation e-mails to Columbus area doctors and dentists, following a fund-raising tip from a filmmaking book. Included in the e-mails was a short message and an attached letter containing the information that has become the About Aimless page. I didn't get any responses.

I'm not stupid; I knew it would take a lot more than 40 or 50 e-mails to find the support I'm seeking. But I didn't even receive any responses saying, "Your idea sounds neat. Unfortunately we're currently not in a position to assist." No responses at all. That's when I realized I needed a web site ASAP. A web site would enable me to keep the e-mail messages short, allowing people to look into Aimless at their own convenience, instead of reading a two-page letter they probably never wanted anyway. Also, I believe people would be more responsive if there was a web site to show how much work I've put into this project; to show that I am very serious about it. So I turned my attention to finding a web host.

Right away I sent maybe 15 or 20 e-mails to web hosts I found through a Google search for "'Web Host' Columbus, Oh," and I received responses from a couple people. One of them agreed to host the web site for me, but she was very busy with her existing clients, so I patiently waited a couple weeks for her to set up a meeting with me. But by then I really needed to get the show on the road; I had designed and created enough pages for a complete web site, and there was not much I could do until they were out there for people to see. So I sent my prospective host an e-mail saying I need to get the show on the road, and that I was about to start sending more solicitation e-mails to other web hosts because I just can't keep waiting. I'd been patient, and my patience was only holding me back, taking me off task. One passage from the e-mail I sent her describes the mindset I'm striving to maintain:

Aimless is about going out and getting, like you did when you started your own company. It's about giving and receiving and making fair trades. It's about not allowing excessive patience to continue being such an obstacle. It's about: "Here's what I have to offer. If you want it, act now or risk losing your opportunity to someone more insightful and decisive. If you don't want it, nice meeting you. Good luck." And I have stuck to the framework defined in the last sentence with everyone except you.

So do you want it?

Within an hour or two I started sending e-mails to other hosts, mostly just to find a back-up plan in case my current situation didn't work out. (I'm digressing here. Let me get back on track.)

It was two weeks ago when Glenn Shope from Net Acceleration offered to host the Aimless web site. After thinking about it for a day (or "sleeping on it"), I agreed to accept his offer. And 13 days ago the Aimless web site became a reality. It was still a couple days before I'd uploaded enough material to make the site worth checking out, and I've been doing a lot of tweaking over the last ten days or so. But the site is pretty solid now and I need to face my fears and start begging for assistance again. That starts today.

That is something I could not do before. I couldn't ask people for help when I desperately wanted to open a pizzeria. There are a lot of good reasons for that--about 200,000 good reasons--but there are also plenty of good reasons for me to chicken out with Aimless, too. But I'm not going to.

Aimless could also be called "Fearless." I have been afraid to make important decisions in my life, to ask for help, to go out and get what's mine. I'm a pussy, and that's surely one large reason I worked for $7 an hour at age 32. Well, I'm not going to be a pussy anymore. I have nothing to lose anymore, and that's why Aimless exists. Ideally I want to get back the feeling of fearlessness--of freedom--I had in early June, but right now I'm a little afraid. I'm afraid to face rejection. I'm afraid to ask people for help.

That fear ends right now. Today it all begins again. As soon as I post this entry I'm going to send all those doctors and dentists a follow-up e-mail. Only this time it will be from an official-looking e-mail address and the letter will be short and sweet. Then I'm going to find more people to send short e-mails. Then more. And I'm going to do this for as long as it takes because Aimless is no joke. Aimless is no dream. Aimless is real, and Aimless will become something very special to the American people beginning now.

I finally have a real blog

It's way easier to get a blog set up than I figured. I just went to blogger.com, following one of my own Google ads, and set the thing up. The cool thing is that I can choose whether I want it to be on my server or theirs. I have chosen to keep it on my own server for the time being. For as easy as it was to set up this blog, it sure was extremely difficult at the same time, due to a bunch of technical problems and stupid stuff.

Anyway, I have been doing a lot of stuff to the site the last few days. You probably can't tell, though, because it doesn't look like I've done much. But I've gone through each of the pages and made a lot of code changes to make the pages look alike from one browser to another. I was shocked when I visited the site from Explorer because it looked a lot different than it does in Netscape. It still looks a little different, but nothing huge. I don't know why different browsers can't just all read the same code. That's stupid.

All right, so I keep jumping a bunch of new hurdles, thinking I'm almost home free, but then I encounter new hurdles. What'll be next? Right now I just need to go make some pizza dough because I am starving. Unfortunately the dough won't be ready to use for a couple hours. Urg!

Oh yeah, and this will remain the location of the blog because this blog is worth keeping.

Blog Forum

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This "blog" is moving to this location in the Aimless Forums.

So for the blog (in case this dumb html editor screws up the links), go to http://aimlessmovie.com/phpBB/viewforum.php?f=16. And for the Forum index, go to http://www.aimlessmovie.com/phpBB/.

Swim

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I'm about to go swimming for the first time this summer if I can find my trunks. Me white boy. Very white boy.

Hey, is anyone actually reading this?

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Since this "blog" does not allow commenting, I don't really know if anyone has been checking it out. Well, I do know it's very unlikely that anyone has been checking it out because 1) The site is only a week old, and 2) With the site only being a week old, there have not been many visitors yet.

Anyway, if you have been checking in on this "blog" periodically and you would like to comment on what I have to say, I request that you take your comments over to the Aimless Forums. The format of the forum is actually useful, and I would really like to get some action going over there, whether it is related to Aimless or not.

Baby steps

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Now that this web site is running and looking presentable, it's about time to start sending out e-mails to anyone and everyone in hopes of finding prospective sponsors. I knew before I got very far into this project that I'd likely face at least a 95 percent rejection rate (or non-response rate), but I can't let that stop me because I know someone out there is waiting for the opportunity to be a part of something like Aimless. Who is it? I don't know, but I'll find them.

Not a lot of people know about Aimless yet, but I'm happy to report that I've received very positive feedback from those who do. It just confirms my belief that this is worth doing--that people will be interested in what I'm trying to create.

A few things

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I can't even remember what I was going to write about here. There is so much going on inside my head, it's not even funny. Oh yeah: My progress, Net Acceleration, and Twerky.

Let me start off with Net Acceleration. Glenn Shope and Net Acceleration are totally awesome. He has been kind enough to set me up with web hosting for this site because he gets it. He understands that I am passionate about Aimless, and he wants to help me nurture that passion. Also, I can only assume he understands how his assistance will eventually pay off big-time for him. I mean, he offered to host this site literally 20 minutes after I sent him an unsolicited solicitation for assistance, which actually kind of freaked me out. It just reinforces my belief that I will find people willing to provide the assistance I'm seeking. Some people get it; others don't.

Twerky. If you noticed the photo at the bottom of the "home" page, you may have figured out that my cat had a leg amputated yesterday. Poor little dude. But you know what? He doesn't care. I picked him up from the vet's today, and he's running around and "smiling" and happy as can be. He's a special little guy, and I love him.

I am tired from another 12+ hours of working for free, so I think I'll just skip the part about my progress. If you didn't already see this, here's Twerk yesterday morning before the operation:

OK, for some reason this doesn't seem to want to show the picture. I know I got the code right, but it's still not here. Whatever. (All right, I fixed it. Man, I really don't like the html editor I'm forced to use right now. Hopefully by Monday I'll know how to get around it.)

Another one

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Well, I'm coming around. Got some pages up, but I really don't want to keep using this template. I sure hope there is a way to allow comments to this blog. Not much point in having one without allowing comments. I mean, I could just make another regular page for all the stuff I'm saying here.

First Blog Entry

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This is my first blog entry. Trying to figure out how to set this shit up. Getting frustrated.