Circles. That's what it boils down to. A concentric ring of people coming together to listen.
REMIX Hanoi brought 14 people together for 3 days in June at the beautiful VUI Studio. Three teams from all over the world and with completely different backgrounds worked together to create 3-5 min documentary films from scratch -- in less than 48 hours of pre-production, production, and post-production time.
What struck me the most about this group was how peaceful and in tune they all remained throughout the three-day process. Everything came together as intended: slowly, revealing itself gradually. Well, the last-minute changes and chaos are to be expected, as it should be in such accelerated programs! While each group was unique in their work process, they all shared a sense of calm and awareness. Our “points” (coaches)—Genevieve and Justin, SoSM alumni who flew in to help out with this REMIX, expressed their almost-bewilderment in one of our daily check-ins.
"I can't believe how they are so calm," they exclaimed. "I kept waiting for the drama, and nothing happened!"
Teams were under stress, of course—they had to turn in their rough cut (the first draft of their work) by the end of Sunday for an audience of around 50 people who came to see the results. They were cutting footage, adding subtitles, cleaning up the sound right up to the last anxiety-inducing seconds. Luckily, due to our intention setting from the beginning, a sense of calmness permeated all of us.
We insisted in taking breaks of meditation.
We peppered our program with check-ins, short interviews, opportunities for listening.
We talked about the value of respecting our "participants"—the subject of their documentary work. Then we practiced respecting each other within the room. We began to SEE each other. And in that practice, learned to see ourselves.
At the end of the program, all fourteen of us sat together in a circle, processing the whole experience as a group. We shared our innermost feelings, personal stories, desires and hopes, as well as sadness and disappointments in our lives, our world. But the most remarkable to me was how we started to listen together, a theme emerged, naturally, and ideas ran together. Before realizing it, we were talking as one.
More than anything the teams and Individual members had accomplished over this weekend, the moment of cohesion I felt with the group made me the most proud.
I'm very excited about the shift that we are causing. And more so, encouraged with each new encounter, each chance I get to listen to a new person.
