In the hands of a poet, pastor, or politician, the use of metaphor can take on meaning at different levels. Video extends and expands the possibilities and power of words by going straight to the heart. Can the messenger affect the message?
Our spectator complacency can tune out, deliberately or by distraction, what we hear. It is much more difficult to resist the participatory invitation of video and sound woven together to tell a story.
When we watch a video we each bring a different heart, past, regrets, hopes, education, and the relationships that make us who we are. Video touches and often shapes all of us. It can find the cracks in the strongest, hardest defense and sneak in to take residence in the heart.
We all remember something from a movie-news-commercial that is still lodged somewhere in the container of who we really are. We identify with the humanity in video just as we are repulsed by the inhumanity. It is a medium that affects us all. Image and sound come together and tell or retell a story. A story connects the audience to a person, place, time, or event. It is not about the response of the audience to the story. It is about the audience’s understanding of their relationship to the story, its character, and or its theme.
We all have the ingredients of great movies; pictures, old tapes, music, brochures, etc.; unfortunately most of these story items are disconnected in a drawer, closet, or worse, boxed away and forgotten somewhere. Why is that? This world still honors a person’s story, yet so many stories are untold. We all have stories that are written between margins of silence. Video slips past those silent guards and touches the secret places of the heart, reminding us who we are and who we are to one another. Your story matters.
Since our stories can live much longer than our mortal bodies, why do so many stories go untold? Why do our friends and family leave this world and take their stories with them? Why are there so many missing memories?
On my Videos page there is a short movie called "Still The Same." Some of these images are over 50 years old. It means a lot to my wife and brothers. What old pictures have you discarded that someone else might find precious when you are gone?
I have two old VHS wedding tapes of people I never met. Why would they be at an estate sale? Their presence among strangers looking for a deal bothered me; not that I was a family member or anything. Their being there told a sad story, so I bought them. I suppose I thought I was saving them from something. Who knows. I have a love-hate relationship with estate sales. If the would be buyers are rude I am reminded of the old Anthony Quinn movie Zorba the Greek
Video mirrors the truth, the lies, and the fiction of life. Have you noticed that life does not conform to philosophy, sociology, science or even theology? Either-or simply will not answer ever question. Much better to embrace the mystery of both-and.
Video can enhance our experience of life while preserving our memories and stories for others. Did I say we all have a story and stories do matter?