Forming a partnership: collaborating

Collaborate is a fancy way of saying working together, but the word gets stickier when we have to define the shared responsibilites while making this short film.

It is your story.
No it is yours too, he said.

Yeah but it is your idea. We are telling your story.
No, we are telling OUR story, he said, demanding me to claim ownership to the film.

At first I just wanted to help with the proposal and later, well, he could always find a crew.  Largely because I wasn't keen on the subject. I believed the cow-head protest and the townhall meeting was a case of village bullies trying to be heroes, but Sheridan described the incident as a mini May 13. Both of us are gripping at the edge of two extreme ends of the spectrum.

Sheridan is a political writer. I, on the other hand writes just about everything from mangoes to Mawi, excluding politics. Can we actually agree on a story?

That aside, we have to agree what collaborating entails:

• We will write the story together, meaning we have to agree on how the story is told, frame by frame.
• We will take turns directing and filming. If one person holds the camera, the other will hold the interview and decide the shots.
• We will choose the music, the graphics, and share the general workload of getting interviews, becoming runners and getting supplies.
• We also have specific roles: Sheridan handles the financial side of things, I take care of compiling materials, from scedules, treatment, storyboard to script ie admin work.
• and Sheridan will keep the make-up kit and therefore touches up the interviewees.

From here on, we have to answer the most important question: WHAT is the story?