Beyond the lens: weaving personal narration into documentary storytelling
Meet the Disbro family: Matthew, Deanna, Beau, and Zeke—dad, mom, baby, and doggo, respectively.
In this first-time parent household, learn how the sleepless struggles of new parenthood combined with 2021 pandemic related concerns to create a gloomy forecast over the Disbro family’s health and wellness. Then see those challenges overcome by the inclusion of Zeke in our “pack,” and how the simple act of taking care of a dog can translate into taking care of the whole family.
I hope that you enjoy this short doc even a fraction as much as I loved putting it together.
Also, a huge shoutout to WUF World for sponsoring the video production. To all dog owners out there, I’d encourage you to join their global community of dog lovers.
from a content creator perspective—this project holds a special place in my heart… but why?
Because this story is about my family!
The video documents a timeframe that was indeed quite challenging. As most parents can relate. The first 0-18 months of parenthood demands a ton of time and attention. Plus the health concerns surrounding COVID-19 exposure in 2021 made an oddly isolating period of life for both Deanna and myself.
Casting difficulties aside, the story told falls squarely into the most magical timeframe of a parent and child relationship. The transitional period when a baby grows into a toddler. E.g. when I watch this now, I am just tickled at the fact that our son was still crawling when this was filmed in mid 2022. It wasn’t but a month or two after the fact that he began to walk.
This video provides a glimpse inside that uniquely magical period. It’s a brief window of a time wherein many moments feel like a blur in my current memory. But this video gives our family a chance to remember some specific details vividly, and that’s largely why I am so fond of this project.
yet there is another element at play. enticing both my creative muse & fondness regarding this video.
In addition to the opportunity to reminisce, this project was creatively challenging to put together, because I was incorporating my own voice and narration into the broader structure of a short documentary. I know that I have no claim to breaking any kind of narrative mold here. There are a handful of mainstream examples of intimately crafted documentary stories where the filmmaker is a subject of the story being told.
However, that personalized narrative challenge is not something I have ever thoroughly tackled until this story. And I love that this story fulfills that dynamic relating to my own growth as a storyteller. To me, it’s quite fitting that my first experience with parenthood is also my first time interweaving a personal narrative into a short doc featuring otherwise traditional documentary storytelling.
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