Some filmmakers pride themselves on making a film every year or two. Or even only every ten (ahem, James Cameron). But documentarian Alex Jablonski is making a film a month for a whole year.
In the second installment of Sparrow Songs, Jablonski interviews people in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, all of whom have felt the affects of the recession. Some have lost their jobs, others have family members who are out of work. All of them have a story.
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Jablonski didn’t have a big Hollywood budget to get the stories for Sparrow Songs, but he said it didn’t take much to get people talking.
“We set up a backdrop in a parking lot and just asked people,” Jablonski told EconomyStory.org. “Everyone was struggling or knew someone who was struggling.”
Sparrow Songs isn’t alone in trying to exhibit individual stories about the recession.
The new film Up in the Air uses interviews with people who have recently lost their jobs and inserts them into scenes in the film, where George Clooney plays a man who makes his living by firing people. Online series like the New York Times project Jobless: In Their Own Words asks people to submit their own stories about coping with unemployment. Patchwork Nation’s photo feed gathers photos from around the country documenting people’s experiences in different types of communities. And Marketplace’s Public Insight Network gathers first-hand reports from people around the country about topics ranging from job hunting to gift-giving.
Clearly, people are anxious to tell their stories and find a community to share them with.
Jablonski said the experience of asking people in person and having them look directly into the camera helped him to connect with people, especially being unemployed himself at the time.
“People are honest because I’d told them my story,” he said.
