As Forrest Gump said, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.”
That couldn’t be more true about the documentary filmmaking process. A completely non-linear journey, it has three distinct aspects from my experience. It’s one part the gathering of “clay” — the raw material to eventually sculpt a piece. It’s one part detective work – the process of discovery to find the clay. It’s one part total and complete surrender – the willingness to be open and flexible on the path of discovery.
Questions are the keys to the discovery, which leads to the gathering of the clay.
Here’s a question we asked Dr. Mark Russell, one of our experts, when he told us that there was a mental health reentry program, at one time, for returning soldiers. The successful program was put into place by FDR in 1944 and dismantled shortly after WW ll ended. Many wars and many years since there has been NO other program in its place.
So we asked him…
“What will it really take to de-stigmatize mental illness and make mental health care and treatment for our soldiers – for our society — a top and lasting priority?”
This psychologist and retired Navy Commander (24 years) had an answer that seemed so practical and quite frankly, so obvious.
Our military, the most influential and pro-active organization on the planet, he explained, needs to be empowered by the rest of us to make mental healthcare and treatment a civil rights matter and necessity.
