one year to go and it's just begun

Two years ago someone said to me, 'you need a filmmaker on board with this PhD thing' ... yer right, I responded, where am I going to find one of them!

Now, with exactly one year left on this journey and at exactly the perfect moment, the filmmaker materialises (hello and thanks MC!) and the team is complete! Two supervisors to guide the academic thought/writing processes and one filmmaker (and, as it happens, ex-communard) to extract the story/film/artefact from me. I am very happy :o)

So, let's start this conversation.

Mike, first up, you're spot on with your initial observations and seem completely in tune with what is going on here. I get a sense that this dialogue has great potential and I am incredibly appreciative of your willingness to be involved. I know that it can be hard work getting interested and involved in someone else's creative pursuits. I hope it will prove to be rewarding for you.

I understand and agree with your take on Naturalistic Inquiry, your thoughts are somewhat deeper than what I've presented in the blog thus far. I understand that this is the process and exploration of the intertwining of elements and perspectives. In my methodology chapter I've tried to explain this using the metaphor of fractals - an infinite structure that repeats itself over and over, that will completely alter given the slightest disturbance. I, as the filmmaker/researcher am at the centre of this little universe and I can be found at all levels. The fact that you are now an element in this research project/film will have changed the process and results. I look back upon the previous two years on this journey and see all of the barriers and false starts and I could say, if only I could have been where I'm at now, two years ago ... but as you say, things that are obvious in hindsight are never obvious in foresight. Each one of those barriers and false starts were key to where I am now.

As I mentioned to you today, I've found it challenging to identify why I care about this thing called the Universal Brotherhood. My initial hook (six years ago) was the spiritual leader Fred Robinson. His apparent calling in life was as a prophet more than a leader. He believed passionately that the world was in trouble, on the wrong path with regard to education, economics, lifestyle and he spent the last 40 years of his life dedicated to 'doing God's will'. His spiritual sources were obscure - channelled information from the 'elder brothers from outer space', a 19th Century book called the Oasphe and another called the Urantia.

You asked, why is that interesting to me? Fred 'spoke' to me because he was talking about concepts that had long been part of my life. I grew up in a house where it was quite normal (and as a child, exciting) to be discussing ETs, ghosts, channelling and other astral phenomena. I grew up with a knowing that there is an unseen, intangible element to this world that it is far more expansive than we could ever fathom so to discover, as an adult, this 80 year old man who had been touring around the country in the 1960s and 70s trying to convince the world of his message for the 'new age' was exciting and I was keen to know what he had been saying.

From that initial interest I began meeting and interviewing some of the ex-communards who live in Adelaide. From this I made a 20 min film called 'The Calling' that was about Fred. Through these people I began to learn more about life in the community and it became like a living world for me. This sounds ridiculous but a part of me felt a shock when I went over to Balingup in WA, to the community and saw that it wasn't there like it was in the 70s, that the characters I had heard about were all 30 years older and could barely remember their time in the UB!! I would speak to them as if a day hadn't passed by. it wasn't these 50 year olds that i knew, I felt as if I knew them as 20 year olds and a part of me was disappointed to not be able to speak with them. This prompted me to begin thinking about time and space and how the archives were kind of like little portholes in time, allowing me to peak into the past, allowing me to converse with the people of the past.

The expansive archive has been a hook for me as well and the search for the long lost 16mm film became somewhat of a holy grail scenario, check out the keyword 'Deacon Chapin' for the blog postings about this journey. This passion for history is something that I have reflected on over time. I have an absolute passion for personal histories. I love to see old photos, home movies, letters, anything that tells me about who people are and where they've been. This is key to my love for documentary. Through processes of self reflection I have come to the conclusion that my deep interest in other people's history is because I don't have one of my own. I was adopted and as an adopted child my lineage begins and ends with me. So, if this is an accurate reflection then it's not lost on me that my entire interest in the UB could stem from the need for a history of my own. These people that lived in the community are of the same generation that my parents would be. Have I immersed myself in the world of the UB community because that is where I would like my own history to be?

Hmm, Mike, did you ever think of becoming a psychotherapist? You asked two simple questions and have opened a door to a new dimension! If this is where I'm at and where I'm coming from then this is no longer a film about the UB but about myself ... :o/ ... do i even want to go there?? Filmmaking as therapy?

Over and out ...