The Making of rorschach...
Happy Memory Project Monday!
Publishing countdown for The Memory Project’s book: 2 weeks!
In the last two weeks before our book publishes, our class is looking back at the reporting process and the stories we discovered along the way. Most of us found ourselves following leads we never anticipated, and learning things we never thought we would.
Elizabeth Campbell has been working on a story about an artist who inspires her, and who she relates to. “There’s something about experiencing the same thing as someone else that jut speaks to the unity of the human condition,” she said. “But, we all deal with what happens to us in different ways.”
This isn't the full picture, this isn't the whole story.
Like the confines of a memory, this image is cropped. A small detail of a bigger picture and a larger narrative.
As we uncover more about each photograph, our stories will develop to complete the frame.
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Charlotte Skipper took a photograph of herself with India ink starting at her ear and running down her neck. She did this for a self-portrait titled, “rorschach” after The Rorschach test. Otherwise known as the “inkblot test”. For the test, a person is asked to consider ten standardized inkblots and describe what they see. The tests answers are meant to reveal truths about that persons personality, emotional functioning, or mental disorder.
For Charlotte, this piece was meant to embody how a troubled relationship had changed her, and marked her. The ink worked to visually symbolize this, and prompt both the viewer and herself to ask: What do you see?
“My story is a love story, or rather a story of love lost. It’s about what remains of a broken relationship and the emotional scars that it leaves behind,” Elisabeth said. “It explores trauma and recovery, hurt and healing.”
Hollywood Pitches
To be able to sum a story up in a couple of sentences means it has to have a clear narrative. But, cutting a story down to an engaging basis is harder than it seems. As an exercise in simplicity, our class tried to “pitch” our stories in a few short sentences. This question was first posed to us, and now we are posing it to you:
If you were stuck in an elevator with a Hollywood producer for 5 minutes, how would you pitch your story?
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Here are a few “Hollywood Pitches” from our class:
“Overshadowed by his ten siblings, a devoted son chooses an unconventional path to win his mother’s love. Amidst the battle of brothers, will he prevail?”- Nikita Apte
“The son of New England royalty, who received all of its expectation and none of its inheritance, overcomes his aimless ambition to become beloved by everyone but known by few.” – Owen Mason-Hill
Two inner city teenagers cross paths in high school. They are faced with an untimely pregnancy forcing them to navigate the real world, love, and their past traumas together. – Ayana Garcia
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