What Have I Done This Week

Well, what have I done this week for my group. Cassandra and I met for our weekly meeting and discussed a few things. The most important was setting up times to do interviews and other stock footage we will use for the doc. We nailed down a date to interview her chiropractor/acupuncturist which will kill two bird with one stone. First it will get us the interviews we need, and second we will get the treatment on camera which is a huge part of the doc. We also discussed the materials we will need to shoot such as extra batteries, dv tapes etc. We made a half ass budget to get a rough idea of how much everyone is going to have to put in to get the supplies we will need like coffee and donuts for our interview subjects to put them at ease and make them feel more open for us. We also discussed our papers that we turned in wednesday. I recommended the idea to go look for an herbal remedy store around town somewhere and Cassandra said there was one downtown. So next thursday we're going to try to do an interview the owner of the store and after that get some other stock footage of kids out on the town thursday night to show how we treat our bodies stuffing it full of alcohol and late night fast food binges. I also am taking the camera out for the weekend to get any other stock footage we might be able to use such as eating habits of my roomates or the taco bell drive thru at 1am. That's all I did- Sean

Why Do I Care About This Film

Well, I care about this film for a few reasons beyond the obvious I-get-a-grade for it. The first notable reason is the fact that I love religion and philosophy. I've always had a natural affinity for the spiritual matters. More of a curiosity than anything. Anytime there's a way to better understand this huge universe I'd like to find out as much as I can. So when it comes to comparing western and eastern medicines there's a large part of me that has interest in it because of those affinities. I'd also just from a historical standpoint like to know where and when these two division have cropped up and if they are really separate at all, or if it's just a stigma, or easy niche we throw them into in order to understand the healing process better. The other big part of me that has an interest in this is the mind over matter curiosity. I've love believed in mind over matter to a certain extent. I'd like to see how much that is true when it comes to surviving and thriving through a chronic disease which must take a tremendous amount of will power to overcome and cope with. Finally I love anything that prods and probes subjects that many aren't familiar with. Any chance to get to learn something along with documenting it is a chance I can't pass up. So I bring an enthusiasm to not only document this subject and experts in the both sides of the medical field, but more importantly to learn as much as I can through this chance.

What I have done for my group lately

So what have I done for my group this week? Not a whole lot to be honest. We finally got on the same page though and I'd like to think I had a little something to do with that, but in reality probably not. I did post those five articles, and start doing research on the history of the two medicines a bit. I also emailed the reiki lady again giving her the jist of our doc. To be honest I think the most we as a group accomplished and I'm adding this because I was a part of that group effort was just to sit and talk and get to know each other better. I think that helped immensely. We finally feel like a group and have a standard meeting time and ideas kicking around. The next step will to be emailing at least once a weekend to stay in touch before the Monday meeting. That's all I can think of and even there I was stretching it- I'm out- Sean.

Group Doc thesis

Our group is doing a documentary on eastern vs. western medicine. We plan on looking at both the good and bad of each division of medicine. The plan is to show fairly the ups and downs of each choice, and whether or not one is better than the other, or if a combination of the two is the best method to approach healing of traditional chronic illness.
To do this we plan to show the different treatment of the same illness by western and eastern and compare the results and best we can. This will be done by following Cassandra into her treatment of her illness. She sees both traditional western doctors and also sees doctors like chiropractors and people that do acupuncture. We’ve also lined up a lady who does reiki. Reiki treats your energy through touch and non-touch. It uses your aural energy, the basic energy field of the body. The practitioner then taps into that energy and clears blockages or applies healing where needed through their energy. If at all possible we plan on filming a session with a camera that captures the body’s energy field to show how the process works.
Also, we are going to show the way in which the West lives that contributes to their illness and how that lifestyle is in direct connection with the treatment. So for instance we are going to shoot people downtown at night and the way they binge drink and stuff hotdogs and taco bell down their throat. This kind of behavior among others can lead to obesity and even diabetes or heart disease. So diet will be a part of the documentary. Cassandra knows a person in Maine who does a diet which is meant to keep you very healthy and detoxify you. It is a lifelong diet however. So not only will we show the way that ailments are treated, but also some of the ways western society directly contributes to those ailments we then seek treatment for. The diets will be a large part of that, but only because we want to show how in the west the ailment is treated and the east the body is treated as a whole with the ailment in mind.
We will also cover different religious view of healing. From Christian prayer, to Buddhists envisioning the medicine Buddha, there are many cultural and religious differentiations to healing. This will connect because in the east many of these healings came directly from spirituality. But in the west it seems it came more empirically without the mix of religion and healing. That is of course unless you consider prayer, which we will. But that doesn’t directly affect any of the healing methods itself, but merely is designed to call upon divine intervention which is a far cry from the spiritual role in eastern medicine.
Finally, we will concentrate mostly on Cassandra and her experiences, however we will expand outside. For instance for the reiki session I might volunteer as an outside opinion. That way the documentary won’t seem as one opinion based as it does consider the facts, respectively. We hope to critique each side of medicine for its faults and find the benefits in each. In the end we will not only have a good overview of what each type of medicine is, but a story within a story dealing with a personal story of recovery with Cassandra.

5 Articles Dealing With Chronic Illness

Article 1) Living Well with Chronic Illness.
...all about living well with chronic illness


Article 2) Living with Chronic Illness
...more about living well with chronic illness and being patient with it.

Article 3) Living with chronic illness: Why should I go on?
... Looks at Christian reasons for living with chronic diseases and not ending your life.

Article 4) Chronic Illness and Disability
...another view of chronic illness and the disability that goes along with the illness.

Article 5) TRAVELS WITH THE WOLF: A STORY OF CHRONIC ILLNESS by Melissa Goldstein.
....a personal story of looking at chronic illness by someone who's dealt with it.

Well I got some stuff on reiki, yoga, traditional medical treatment, and so on...there's the links.

Reiki

Well I emailed a local practioner of reiki healing last night. She responed quickly and sounded excited to be able to get some word out on reiki therapy. For those of you who don't know what reiki is you can just click THIS and it'll take you to a wikipedia article on it. I just wanted to update this because I'm happy she not only got back to me so quickly but is also enthusiastic about participating. Anyway that's all for now. It's a step in the right direction and maybe even some free reiki treatments. Or at least an opportunity to not only cover it for the doc but also get hands on experience with it.

Sweet

Well although I wasn't present for the decision I'm glad my group has decided to go with western medicine vs. eastern/alternative. I have a particular interest in this since I've grown up with experience with spirits, mediums, ufos. Yah I don't want to sound like a weirdo but its all true. Also being a religion minor I've been exposed to a lot of different cultural practices so I'm not only interested in this topic I feel I can contribute to it with my heart in it. Before when it was just about the evils of the healthcare industry I wasn't feeling it. Don't get me wrong I didn't mind doing it, but my heart wasn't in the project. At least with this project not only can I bring some enthusiasm to my work, but hopefully some insight and knowledge.

Audience

The audience for our Doc will be very important. It's a razor's edge that were walking with the medical issue as our topic. Cassandra with her experience of having trouble with the healthcare system will probably want to focus on what she went through. John meanwhile will want to do the same thing dealing with the homeless people. But we need to be very careful not to just focus it in one direction. If we only go in those directions the documentary will fail. Not because it isn't about an issue, or covered well. But because it won't be relatable to a large audience. We need not to only specify this, but also generalize it enough so that it covers the whole healthcare industry and not just the problems Cassandra or Jonathan have seen. So hopefully the audience will be just about anybody. I think anyone who's been to a doctor would like to watch this. Time after time you get referred a million times, then you have to deal with insurance and HMO's and it becomes a tangled mess. I think the most important part is that it is enjoyable for everyone to watch. This should not just be some preachy film about the evils of the healthcare system. The healthcare system does ALOT of good. I think it'd be a shame if this came out onesided against it because it wouldn't be a solid portrayal of the truth. BUt there will be problems and this doc should address those problems and not take on the healthcare industry for sake of a grudge. In the end the audience will be anyone who enjoys a good film. As long as it's entertaining and educational we shouldn't exclude any viewers except a few insurance CEO's. But like I said we run the risk of ostracizing people by being preachy and too negative. It's gotta be a fair, clean look at the problems and if we do that, the audience can be anyone because I'd imagine everyone has been to a doctor in their life.

River Road Article

Mark one down for the good guys... river road article.

Similar ideas

Well since last class our group has become for solid in our project idea. River road is out not because I want it to be, but one of two community meetings has already passed and I believe the other one is coming soon, so without that material the film would take a beating pretty hard. So I've sacrificed my idea for the betterment of the group. Jonathan voiced his opinion on the way we treat homeless people through his experience of taking them in and hearing their stories and what they have to deal with to get help for different issues like alcoholism and so on. He noted that it is hard for a homeless alcoholic to get help for alcoholism because the hospitals won't help a sober person get treatment for alcoholism even if they want it. So essentially they have to get drunk to get into detox. I have my opinions on this matter but I feel they're best left unsaid. My mother who works with mentally retarded and disturbed people said detox is only for the worst of the worst, so any person wanting help would most likely not qualify for detox hence why those homeless men are having problem getting treatment. On the same end of the spectrum Cassandra wants to do something dealing with the problems and dead ends of the healthcare system having been a victim or it's negligence herself. So we do have a somewhat common theme of how the healthcare system screws people over. I say we get rid of HMO's and start universal healthcare but that's just me. There's not as much money in that system for the greedy CEO's to make. Anyway at least now we have a theme and we can branch off from there and start specifying what exactly we'd like to cover concerning the pitfalls of the healthcare system. Adios - Sean