Today I want to share an idea I've had for ages and ages. It has morphed many times over the years: originally it was conceived as a feature documentary interweaving four stories about coffee growers and coffee drinkers and in it's current incarnation it is a series of stylized mini-docs called TRADING FACES. Here's how it goes:
TRADING FACES mirrors the lives of producers and consumers in order to suggest the human relationships behind the complex system of global trade. Each 3 minute episode is a visual palindrome: one character reflects the other’s actions on a split screen. Music fuses their worlds together. We are aware of both the distance between them and their common bonds, their separate lives and their inherent connection through global trade.
With countless products produced and consumed daily around the world, the possibilities are truly endless, but potential episodes include:
- Coffee harvested in Nicaragua fuels a poet’s reading in Savannah
- Sneakers made in Pakistan are sported by a hipster teen in Boston
- Cocoa gathered in Ghana becomes a sweet treat for a Belgian boy
- A tree logged in Brazil is crafted into eco-flooring for a Seattle couple
- Spices grown in India flavor a chef's soul food dish in New Orleans
- Cotton from Mali is manufactured into a toy for a tiny tot in Paris
- Diamonds mined in Canada glitter as a lucky girl in London says I do!
So the question is, if I can only produce one, which one would you watch? Or share your suggetions about people connected by other products!
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I love this idea.
ReplyDeleteI think the power comes from doing more than one, doing a series where some are predictable (cocoa) and some are stunningly surprising (a suburban dad donates his used ten speed bike to a program, and a farmer in Ghana ends up with it, transporting crops to market.) Or even a chain (the farmer is bringing cinnamon to market, it flavors a cup of tea consumed in Amsterdam...)
Tom F