Coronavirus, confinement, creativity & chronicles

Getting to know our forces & foibles

Coronavirus, confinement, creativity & chronicles

Getting to know our forces & foibles

Thank you for reading and kicking off this new project with me. It is a joy to share with you. 

Location: Tunbridge Wells, Kent, UK.

Camden Road – my brother Patrick’s flat.

Living alone.

I cannot go back home to Qingdao, China, where I work as a film teacher. I do not know when I will be allowed back. Teaching online with Zoom is the latest “boom”, and it’s great to reconnect with my cinematography students from Bfamcmc. 

Wang Ying, friend and teacher, this morning, during doc class, China.

They tentatively walk out into a newer China, hoping to leave Coronavirus behind them. Some type of normality is reaching them there.

I am in limbo in England, though I am near my wonderful family. We are into our forth week of isolation, and finally this confinement is becoming a good chance to create these chronicles which have sat in the far recess of my mind for a long time. 

I am very lucky as I am living in my brother, Pat’s wonderful flat, in this small town, the place I grew up in till 15 years old. The place I have tried to run from all my life, yet come back to, over and over again, and it becoming eulogised in my mind, like Guy Maddon’ss hometown in his wonderful “My Winnigpeg.” 

This time my ‘natal home,’ is my refuge. I have got to know the man upstairs by his movements, as he knows me. We still have not seen each other.

It is no longer terrifying to be in this space, only worrying for those who are not as lucky as I am. Every day I dread looking at the news, it breaks my heart, and each extraordinary story of bravery in the face of such upheaval and the unknown is victory.

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This first post has been really hard to write. I have no idea what I am meant to write, or how I am meant to write it. All I know is WHY I want to write and share what I love and know - making mixed-media documentary films. So here goes. In this time of confinement I am learning more about my force and foibles than in the past 40 years . .

What are you learning ?

For a long time I have wanted to create a documentary website/blog workshop where I will offer classes and share with others, a website for people like me. And finally I’m doing it www.doityourselfdocumentaries.com

So who exactly are people like me?

My persona

Born in the sixties, but relate to many age groups, cultures, ethnicities. Slightly awkward (pretend not to be.) Word and number dyslexic, which means I have to work extra hard and get my friend Andrew to proofread everything I write, or Ivan my brother to check my figures. Am hopeless at any sort of online repartee and clever argument, so avoid it, and when I get carried away with my emotions regret it right away. Ivan told me that FaceBook is transient, nothing becomes a memory, it is swept away, so I shouldn’t worry too much about those rantings. 

I laugh at Rick Mayall, love Betty Boop, and adore watching found footage from the Prelinger Archives. I am a slow learner, used to be terrified of technology, but have found online classes and keep up-to-date, and ask questions.  Love watching East Enders, Coronation Street, Scandinavian thrillers and BBC dramas with Tom, my middle brother. Prefer to communicate through the written word or by phone, only watch films on a large screen or the cinema. Never on a cellphone. Love our Victorian graveyard and watching my granddaughter Violette - Lilly D’amour, running over the flagstones.

So, with this persona created for myself, I created this newsletter, and my blog workshops which I will celebrate on the 28th April, the day of my birth.

Maybe, you are doing the same, creating out of our Coronavirus confinement, creative chronicles that have been waiting so long to find the light, between the shadows.

Please share with us.

Have a great week.

JeanneX