https://soundcloud.com/jared-
Artist Statement (written by Will Morrison and Jared Richardson):
The Process of Compromise
It is very difficult to change someone’s mind. When someone has a strong opinion about something, usually no amount of persuasion can turn them to the other side. Nevertheless, we can’t help but try to change the people around us, who, in turn, try to change us. This creates conflict. Though religion, politics, and sports are usually cited as the most inarguable of issues, there are few things that people feel as passionately about as the music they listen to. We know when we like a song and we know when we don’t. Explaining exactly why is a little more difficult. To try and understand this difficulty, we recorded the process of two strangers simply trying to decide what song to listen to on the radio.
We recorded the documentary in an observational style. Though we asked the subjects a few questions about their tastes in music, our voices do not appear in the recording, nor do we interfere with their process of deciding what radio station they should stop on.
The two subjects were selected based on their differences. We wanted to have two people with contrary opinions in order to create more conflict and therefore a more interesting process. The documentary begins establishing these differences. Jamie is very passionate about music, whereas Joseph doesn’t care much for pop (or listening to music in general). These small interviews also show their differences in personality: Jamie is outgoing and Joseph introverted. As they flip through different stations, Jamie very quickly establishes herself as the dominant personality, while Joseph acts too shy to fully speak his mind in most cases. Though this was different from the dramatic arguments we had originally expected, it was perhaps a bit truer to life. Many compromises are made simply because someone decides they don’t care all that much.
A big inspiration for the concept for our documentary was the short documentary “Scriptures”, which also details the awkwardness and differing perspectives of a relatively routine event. Many times it can be easy to forget about the sheer beauty and complexity of everyday events; at times it is necessary to see them through new eyes or in a new context, which is one of the major roles of documentary filmmaking. Another great example of this is What Makes You Click! This 2016 documentary details how every little, insignificant click in our internet history can show what kind of people we are, even though browsing the internet is a common process we undergo. Though searching for the right radio station is a likewise common process, it can tell you a lot about a person. By simply listening to Joseph and Jamie’s interactions, you can get a better idea of who they are even more than by going over the generic get-to-know-you questions we ask people we meet. No one is fully defined by the habits they have and the processes they engage in, but who we really are—our soul, our personality, our passions—seeps into everything we do.
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