Consuming Cut Flowers

Industry Loss of Connection

Initial Questions -
Q1: Where do our flowers come from?
Q2: How do we create empathy towards other species?

Video Experiments

For this short documentary project, I decided to prioritize interviewing one person on my topic to get a better understanding/ get more comfortable with what to ask for when I continue this film project. I spoke with a friend of mine about her connection to cut flowers, which she uses in relation to religion. I found that hearing her perspective on what flowers she typically uses for this process was particularly interesting since it often is more about what flowers are accessible, and often what is most accessible isn’t always the most sustainably friendly choice. At the same time though there seems to be the perspective that flowers are still somewhat available to be able to replenish alters like this, which is an interesting thought considering the flowers aren’t being produced nearby. At first, I had the impression that I would film multiple people, but with the time I had I ended up using one interview to guide a similar narrative to the original, and when my friend would talk I would also insert clips of the objects she was describing as well as an added angle while keeping the audio coming from the clip-on mic. I liked that from this video the viewer could at least learn something through the interview, but I also wish that I had found a way to abstract the interview to where it could be informative and also visualized creatively. I feel that laying the foundation for that is a good step. The order of questions I selected I think also works since it starts with simpler questions and then makes the viewer think a bit more toward the end. I would also like to in the future film the street vendors that my friend has mentioned, as well as flower shop owners, to get a better understanding of the industry through a producer/seller perspective.