As we grow older, we gain a deeper understanding of life. Like a camera finally gaining focus, many concepts that once felt so abstract and intangible gradually become clear. I’ve never had much experience with loss. I knew of it but never really understood it until this past year.
Losing my grandfather to the big C felt like I was grieving someone who was still alive. Chemotherapy and radiation reduced him to a husk, and it was painful to move forward with the looming threat of his inevitable end. I was torn between cherishing the time I had left with him and mourning the grandpa in my memories. When he passed, it felt so wrong to feel emotional about it. Subconsciously, I convinced myself that his death was a logical progression of events: a man lost his battle with cancer and died. We all saw this coming, so there’s no point in being sad or upset about our loss. We were ready for this, right? I thought I was.
It was only months after his funeral when the realization hit me. I was cutting my brother’s hair (a routine we picked up during the quarantine), and I remembered the last time I cut my grandpa’s hair. It was days before he was admitted to hospice care. He was so fragile, slumped on our kitchen chair as I tried my best to work the clippers around the swelling of his jaw and neck. His graying hair fell to the tiled floors like petals off a withering flower. My grandpa had always been a man of appearances: he was consistently dressed well, maintained a well-groomed appearance, and exuded confidence wherever he went. Remembering him so far removed from his usual sophisticated look shattered me. The grief I thought I had escaped caught up to me, and I was not ready. No amount of mental preparation would ever have prepared me for this.
I realized that he wasn’t just a ‘man’ who lost his battle to cancer. He was a caring husband, an enduring father, a gentle grandfather, a reliable brother, and a wise friend. He was more than what my rational mind summed him up to be. Thousands of cancer patients die every day, and even more die yearly. He was just a statistic in the grand scheme of things. In an attempt to protect myself from anticipatory grief, I had reduced him to a nobody. But he was somebody to me. It wasn’t right to remember him as a victim of cancer. I needed to remember him as the dapper war veteran who was unmatched in poker and doted on the young. He was my grandpa and so much more. I learned to be more appreciative of my time on Earth, of those around me, and of my health. My first lesson in loss is that it gives more than it takes.
Process
I designed and developed this web documentary using Visual Studio Code and pulled pictures from family archives. In doing so, I had a few difficult discussions with family about our experiences with losing my grandpa. It was very rewarding growing closer to family despite losing someone so close and dear to us. Personally, losing my grandpa felt so fast, I didn’t even have time to process the events until years later, which is okay because we all mourn in our own ways. I hope my web documentary offers some solace to those who have experienced something similar to this, as this project is something personal, vulnerable, and deeply emotional for me.
Media has brought both positive and negative impacts on our lives, but I think it is especially prevalent in modern times. The video we watched in class discussing generative data and how it tailors our media consumption based off our subconscious tastes was eye-opening. It made me realize that media makes me, not the other way around. My media consumption feeds into a feedback loop where I continue to consume data that I am ‘interested’ in, resulting in me identifying myself or my hobbies with said interests. This reminds me of Richard Serra’s “Television Delivers People” (1973) broadcast which talks about the implications of media consumption. The ‘product’ of television (or media) are people: people’s individual tastes, interests, and data regarding their consumption patterns. This is both positive and negative: positive because it becomes more convenient to exist, but negative because you essentially lose your privacy and individuality.
As we grow older, we gain a deeper understanding of life. Like a camera finally gaining focus, many concepts that once felt so abstract and intangible gradually become clear. I’ve never had much experience with loss. I knew of it but never really understood it until this past year.
Losing my grandfather to the big C felt like I was grieving someone who was still alive. Chemotherapy and radiation reduced him to a husk, and it was painful to move forward with the looming threat of his inevitable end. I was torn between cherishing the time I had left with him and mourning the grandpa in my memories. When he passed, it felt so wrong to feel emotional about it. Subconsciously, I convinced myself that his death was a logical proceeding of events: a man lost his battle with cancer and died. We all saw this coming, so there’s no point in being sad or upset about our loss. We were ready for this, right? I thought I was.
It was only months after his funeral when the realization hit me. I was cutting my brother’s hair (a routine we picked up during the quarantine), and I remembered the last time I cut my grandpa’s hair. It was days before he was admitted into hospice care. He was so fragile, slumped on our kitchen chair as I tried my best to work the clippers around the swelling of his jaw and neck. His graying hair fell to the tiled floors like petals off a withering flower. My grandpa had always been a man of appearances: he was consistently dressed well, maintained a well-groomed appearance, and exuded confidence wherever he went. Remembering him so far removed from his usual sophisticated look shattered me. The grief I thought I had escaped caught up to me, and I was not ready. No amount of mental preparation would ever have prepared me for this.
I realized that he wasn’t just a ‘man’ who lost his battle to cancer. He was a caring husband, an enduring father, a gentle grandfather, a reliable brother, and a wise friend. He was more than what my rational mind summed him up to be. Thousands of cancer patients die every day, and even more die yearly. He was just a statistic in the grand scheme of things. In an attempt to protect myself from anticipatory grief, I had reduced him to a nobody. But he was somebody to me. It wasn’t right to remember him as a victim of cancer. I needed to remember him as the dapper war veteran who was unmatched in poker and doted on the young. He was my grandpa and so much more. I learned to be more appreciative of my time on Earth, of those around me, and of my health. My first lesson in loss is that it gives more than it takes.
Loss takes many forms. Whether it be emotional loss, physical loss, or existential loss, being human is about taking and losing. For my documentary project, I’d like to interview people and their experience on loss to put into perspective the different interpretations that exist. Inspired by personal experiences and shared experiences from family and friends, this documentary aims to highlight the highs and lows on the journey towards healing. I feel like loss is often an awkward subject to discuss, and I hope that by bringing together the many accounts of loss, I can generate a better understanding for both myself and my audience.
Methods & Materials
An interactive website that tells (my) story of loss
Web documentaries have been around for decades, but their versatile form allows creative exploration and integration. The “battle for the screen,” or battle for people’s attention, has called for new ways of reaching and engaging audiences. Essentially, what a documentary encapsulates is to deliver a message or to record information. Web technologies make it possible to distribute documentaries that reach extensive audiences as long as an internet connection is available. The interactivity of web technologies provides documentary filmmakers the chance to design new forms of documentaries. Methods combine various media forms, such as video, audio, and animation, to create new and engaging narratives. According to a case study of Audience Reception and User Engagement on iOtok, interactive documentaries allow the user to shape their own experiences, allowing audiences to learn on their own rather than it being a guided experience. iOtok is a web documentary composed of 13 episodes that was released in 2017. It tells the story of the last inhabitants of Biševo, a small Croatian island threatened by mass tourism, allowing users to click through a 3D-render of the town to explore and speak to locals. It offers a unique approach to documentaries that inspires me.
iOtok, 2017
Another example is The Goggle’s Welcome to Pine Point, which documents Pine Point, a small town in Canada that no longer exists. The webdoc features videos, interviews, ephemera, and other artifacts gathered in a scrapbook format that audiences can collect as they move between the town’s past livelihood and its current state of abandonment.
Welcome to Pine Point, 2012
Similarly, Michelle Mizner’s The Last Generation is a webdoc about life on the Marshall Islands. The Marshall Islands is a low-lying island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that is increasingly becoming affected by the rising sea levels due to global warming. The story follows children who live on the Marshall Islands and tells an immersive story capturing the hopes, fears, and resilience of these residents.
The Last Generation, 2018
Work Statement
I created an interactive web documentary that discusses my healing process from grief. Using a fantastical analogy, the art is hand-drawn using Procreate and edited using Adobe Premiere Pro. For the story, I made a little self-insert of myself as a photographer where the person I’ve lost is alive through my camera’s viewfinder and not in reality. It’s an analogy to how we see the person who’s no longer with us in everyday life, and it’s a slow process of getting used to not seeing them in those scenes anymore, but their memories will continue to live. The voice-over tells the story of my experience with loss while accompanied by my animation. I used my condenser microphone to record the voiceover and used free source audio for sound effects/music. Overall, I think the project does a good job of conveying my message using art and storytelling. Although my approach does not include informative video footage, I tailored my animations for that purpose.
Sources
Ducasse, J., Kljun, M., & Čopič Pucihar, K. (2020). Interactive Web Documentaries: A Case Study of Audience Reception and User Engagement on iOtok. International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction, 36(16), 1558–1584. https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2020.1757255
The documentary project I had in mind is going to be filmed in landscape with a calm, scenic mood. The main subjects will be storytelling through voice recordings while the videos serve as a supplement. This is my first time creating a documentary and I want to be able to properly capture the complicated emotions it aims to explore.
Below is a wonderful TED talk by Jason B. Rosenthal as he provides insight on the excruciating process of loss and some quiet wisdom to those struggling with grief.
Rosenthal’s pacing as he tells his story is captivating and I want to replicate that narration style for the documentary.
Another example is this video from Big Think where Michelle Thaller shares her experience with losing her husband.
Following one story makes it easier to follow and a lot more personal. The head-on angle captures Thaller’s emotions and mimics a face-to-face conversation with the audience. They also use stock footage as imagery to supplement her narrative, in addition to personal photographs of the couple.
I also want to work with animation to tell my story more metaphorically, blending drawings with real images. An example of this being done is through this short trailer for the documentary on Owen Suskind.
