She's been contributing in various areas, in particular on Tribe's "Happiness project".
Here's what Leslie has to say about her experience so far:
"The last film I made was a short documentary on the removal of peanut butter from my high school’s daily lunch menu. That was in 2007—so clearly my filmmaking experience is somewhat limited. Of course, this is certainly not due to lack of inspiration or interest to make my own film, but rather a severe lack of time and equipment.
I was more than excited to join Tribe for the summer and gain more experience with filmmaking—not necessarily holding the camera and creating my own masterpiece, but learning about the process of filmmaking and all of the tasks and people involved. I find myself learning something new every day that I am at Tribe—and I’m not just saying this because it would probably not sound good if I didn’t.
Though I love being a film major at Wesleyan, the education that I am receiving there is more of a basis for what I want to do in the future, as the primary focus of the major if film analysis. Right now I could rattle off the stylistic elements of a typical Fassbinder film and the six types of documentary, but I couldn’t tell you how to pitch an idea for a project and then get it financed.
What I find most interesting about the creative process (at least what I’ve seen so far) is the amount of collaboration that is involved. In an analytical film paper, I discuss mostly the director’s choices in the film and how he/she creates comparisons, meanings, and images, but it is very rare to see a film made solely by one individual. When at the first creative meeting with recent Kenyon graduate and director of photography Carl Kriss and the Tribe team, Vern asked everyone what they thought about the project and if they had any ideas. I thought to myself, what do I know? I’m only a junior in college and have been here for six days!
I realize now that the creative process is not just someone sitting down at a computer and pouring out their thoughts that eventually congeal into a fully developed, cohesive project. While the “happiness project” may for the most part be Vern’s brainchild, the input of others is necessary so as not to pigeonhole oneself into something that might be totally incomprehensible or boring to everyone else.
Using my film studies knowledge, I suggested watching Chronicle of a Summer, a French documentary from 1960, as a starting reference to see what others have done on the subject of happiness in the past. While this film tends to concentrate more on simply getting the truth via cinema vertité at its purest rather than finding small, concrete, inspiring stories, at its heart is the question “Are you happy?” (Actually I thought the film was a bit dull and much too abstract in the sense that it eventually devolves into poeticizing the lives of a few everyday people instead of actually gauging the level of happiness in Paris in the 1960s.) I’m excited to see where the project goes and to be involved with it.
Here are some of the other projects similar to the happiness project. We looked at these to get a sense of what others have done in the past in terms of similar style and subject matter."
Leslie Wentworth
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1 comment:
I'm intrigued by Vern's approach to the "Happiness Project". Upon reading this post, I remembered a book of the same title. It was one individual's year-long quest to be happy. Now, this one woman created her own happiness alone, but what Tribe is doing here is much more universal. By creating a collaborative definition of happiness, the viewer can pick and choose among the different ideas. Best of luck to Leslie and the team at Tribe on this and future endeavors.
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