CreativeMornings/Vancouver is a free breakfast education series for like-minded individuals within the community, held the first Friday of every month. This month’s theme circled around the topic of Ethics.
Every day in our lives, we hear stories. And if you were impacted to the point where you wanted to turn it into art, how would you do that in a responsible and ethical way?
Jordan Tannahill, a Toronto playwright, filmmaker, and theatre director, made waves at CreativeMornings/Vancouver as he relayed his experience with ethics and creativity. Taking us through the beginnings of his career as a playwright, Jordan recounts how a five-minute casual meeting at the bus stop turned into a play that toured the Toronto high schools.
When handling the sensitive matter of someone’s true story, there are several factors that go into it - below are a few that Jordan has developed as a personal methodology cultivated over years of working as a playwright:
- Clarity - It’s always good to have clearly outlined parameters about what content will be discussed in interviews.
- Trust - It’s best to build the trust rather than gain it as it’s not a one-way exchange. Trust frames the way filmmakers or artists can engage with their collaborators.
- Oath - The most important part of the oath is to not violate the trust or humanity of the collaborator.
- Subject vs. collaborator - Instead of constantly referring to the person you’re creating the art about as a ‘subject’, use the term ‘collaborator’ because you’re working with them to tell the story.
- Life expert - When telling the story, your collaborator is the expert of their own experience, whereas you are the expert of your craft which leads to an incredible meeting of minds.
- Where is the power? - The onus of telling the ‘truth’ is on the filmmaker’s shoulders. There is a fine line where the filmmaker has to maintain the balance of ensuring their collaborator isn’t misrepresented due to their lower social status and cast into the role of a victim; on the other hand, if the story is about a corporation where they use the media to distort the truth, it’s the filmmaker’s obligation to get the story right.
Check out his full talk below:
https://youtu.be/0JQ_ZeWHbVI
Want to join us for the next CreativeMornings/Vancouver? Register here to get your name on the list - next month's speaker is Mathew Chow, Design Lead from IDEO on the topic of Change.
