A Hybrid Film

Part of Like Me being a hybrid film is the animations that will  transition between the different age groups of interviews. The transitions are more subtle than a wipe or dissolve between scenes, but rather serve to illustrate the explanations of love, which will build upon itself with each new definition. The link below shows a simple illustration from the opening of the film Diary of a Wimpy Kid of the kind of visual intended.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_9glZ77CcA

The animation is brief but it gives you the idea we're shooting for. (This film utilizes quite a bit of animation to tell Greg's stories, this link does not in fact tell a story, but simply transitions between animation and live action in the manner desirable. This film however is a prime example of using animation to tell a story, and we will continue use this as part of our research). 

Single Ladies

http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/single_a_documentary_film

The above link is to the film Single: A Documentary Film, that involves majority of the elements that Like Me intends to use; such as emphasizing the vast number of divorced adults today, acknowledging the youth culture we live in, and the difficulty in finding a partner today - which Aziz Ansari in his book Modern Romance explains is because today we are all too wrapped up in finding that "perfect" something, which ultimately translates over into that "perfect" someone and that perhaps this is not the best way of finding a relationship.

(More about Aziz's Modern Romance is most likely on Zoe's blog)

Crew Interviews

Being a participatory documentary, Zoe and I will physically be front of the camera at times. The best way we thought to do this was similar to reality television interviews where characters will speak directly to the camera in response to some action that has unfolded. In Like Me the only slight difference will be that our interviews with the camera will be in response to the other interviews we've heard. 

http://ak-hdl.buzzfed.com/static/2014-10/9/15/enhanced/webdr07/anigif_enhanced-8676-1412882174-2_preview.gif

http://ak-hdl.buzzfed.com/static/2014-10/9/14/enhanced/webdr08/anigif_enhanced-17607-1412880129-21.gif

I am embarrassed to say that these two links are some of the best visuals (one a still, one a meme) of reality tv interviews I could find. These however are far more dramatic than Zoe and I intend. Our interviews, as stated above, are in response to the other interviews about love, where ultimately we are trying to establish our own definitions about love. Therefore these crew interviews will sort of serve as building blocks to our concluding thoughts about our own film.

How Will We Love?

How Will We Love? is a film by Chris Brickler that asks questions about romantic love and commitment, and their place in modern life. Brickler's inspiration for a film about relationships came from interviewing his grandparents - this generational idea is very similar to Like Me, which will ask numerous age groups, (people in their old age as one such group) their thoughts about love.

Part of the importance of involving seniors (older people) is that they have experienced their whole lives, they've loved and lost, and survived. With the exception of Brickler, most of us tend to write off our grandparents as out of touch and probably ignorant, old folks, and that's just not the case. U.S. culture is the only in the world that does not view the elderly as the wisest generation, we give all the authority and power to the youth. Like Me will attempt to shed some light on the knowledge and experience of the older generations; especially being that the film will involve interviews with all types of age groups, a true comparison is inevitable.

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/how-will-we-love/

Love From the Perspective of a Child

http://kaypoe.the-webplace.com/holidays/val03/v03kidtalk.shtml

Brainstorming ideas for our coming Documentary Like Me, love defined from multiple perspectives, Zoe and I found that it might be easiest to categorize the different definitions by people's ages.

The youngest group is that of children, around kindergarten age, five or six years old. There is something fascinating about a child's explanation to things. It is most basic, oftentimes utterly wrong, or confusing, but entirely innocent and sometimes completely accurate. It is funny to think that we were all once children, yet it is impossible to revert back to the simplistic ways of a child.

This link above includes some of the most endearing definitions of love, all responses of children, that involve a simple gesture or feeling, a micro-action only a child can see while adults are too busy being adults.

What is also important to note about these definitions is that these children are highly influenced by their parental figures, and that many of their responses come from the behaviors they witness. This is also an element of Like Me, the influence of familial and social structure not only on children, but people in general, and their definitions of love.