Responding to Listening as an Act of Love

I want to be David Isay.  His approach to recording and capturing people's stories resonated profoundly strongly (double adverb? why not...) with me.  I'm majoring in RTF, and have never been inclined to make films. Because of this, I've been interested in documentary side of the program. I've always felt that there are so many stories in the lives of the people I meet every day, that there's no reason to make one up.  People will always write stories, but there seem to be less willing to tell the stories that we're all surrounded by. But, even then, lighting, focus, framing, and the like have seemed like unnecessary stress added to the process of recording and telling people's stories.  Why not just listen to their stories, the way they've always told them?  If I can tear up reading these stories on my laptop and a coffeeshop, and even more so listening to them, why would I worry about filming them?  Not to say that documentary film doesn't have it's place, but, personally, this kind of storytelling is the kind that I would like to be involved in.

What's interesting about Storycorps, though, is that they let the stories come to them.  They set up a booth and hope people show up.  And the fact that they do, and so frequently, is a testament to the fact these these "ordinary" people are all itching to tell their own stories of heartbreak, triumph, failure, and surprise.  History is what the people who write it tell us (look at american history curriculum) and with this form of documentation, there's no twisting.  Dates and names are important in these stories, but what makes them so important is each individuals' unique perspective on the place in time that they speak of.  There can be a wealthy upper-class doctor, a homeless veteran, and a single mother all talking about the way they were affected by war.  And by replacing an interviewer with a friend or loved one, the Storycorps format allows for (ideally) the most honest stories.

I may have just spent the last twenty minutes ranting about how much I love the idea of Storycorps, but I really do.  If I could join right now I would.  Man, I'm all excited and stuff.