During the beginning of the week we were not making very good progress. Wednesday it became clear to us as a group that the topic we chose was not manageable. The idea of approaching some of the people who were central to the success of our documentary was intimidating and with the language barrier it was just too much.
We did consider making our film more of an observational film, with less emphasis on interviews and more of an outsider’s perspective. A film like that would try to highlight Berlin’s uniqueness as a city with a diversified subculture and sexual openness. While the idea sounded reasonable what we realized is that our final product could be interpreted much differently than we would intend. Instead of creating a film celebrating Berlin’s uniqueness, such an open perspective amateur film, could end up portraying Berlin as a dirty, immoral city. Not wanting to make that mistake we decided to go an entirely new direction.
So from there our task as a group was to go back and come up with something that we could manage as outsiders, with a language barrier. After exploring a new set of options, we came to agree on ping-pong, or in German, Tischtennis. In a city littered with ping-pong tables made of stone, getting the idea wasn’t difficult and accepting it was even easier. The more we looked into Tischtennis in Berlin, the more obvious it became that there is a following and love for the game here that far exceeds the way we think about the sport.
Our idea is that we can use ping-pong as a means to bridge our language barrier in order to interact with some of the local Berliners. By doing this we can create a film that allows us to use our outsider perspective but at the same time work our way into a niche, something that outside of a common game, would be next to impossible. Hopefully we will be able to interact enough to produce something that will not be entirely by outsiders for outsiders, as we discussed with the element of agency.
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