“Working on this trailer was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done,” Gail Mooney told me yesterday. “The shorter the piece, the harder it is for me to edit, and it probably is for most people. I needed to cut to the essence of the story yet not give away too much. I needed to create interest by what I didn’t tell the viewer.”
One thing this wonderful, interest-grabbing trailer doesn’t tell the viewer is incredible passion, energy and innovation Mooney has put into transforming her personal movie project, “Opening Our Eyes,” from the tiny tickle of an idea into a massive, tangible reality.
Created in partnership with her daughter, Erin Kelly, Mooney shares much of her passion — behind the scenes triumphs, frustrations and the technical and creative nuts and bolts of making a movie — through her blogging on the “Opening Our Eyes” website, as well as on Journeys of a Hybrid, where for two years Mooney has been dishing up practical advice and motivation for photographers moving into motion.
Thanks to Mooney’s enthusiastic, adept use of social media, as of yesterday, a week after she posted it, Mooney’s trailer has already been viewed by 1,142 people in 62 countries.
“I realize in the YouTube playing field — of babies biting fingers and cats playing pianos — these type of stats are nothing in the viral world,” Mooney observed. “But they are amazing when you consider what it is.”
Indeed. What it is, at least in part, is a passionate visual communicator — who started her career long before the advent of digital imaging and the Web — sharing a personal project with more than a thousand eager viewers in 62 countries.
Boy with eggs at Camino Abierto, Carlos Keen, Argentina.
The Possibilities in Passion
In a Hybrids blog post last week, Mooney wrote, “When you are convinced that you have the ability to make the impossible possible, then you will put your dreams into action. You will take that chance, and by doing so you are creating your own reality instead of reacting to what others have created for you, which may not be in your best interests.”
There are many people who share this kind of positive sentiment: make your dreams happen with positive thinking. It’s a sentiment that often rubs me the wrong way. It often feels hollow, oversimplifying the immense challenges we all face in life. Regardless of what a Nike ad campaign might say, many of us can’t “Just Do It.” Desire is not enough.
What makes Mooney’s “make the impossible possible” sentiment attractive is that it is grounded in the example of how she lives her life. She struggles, she strives, she overcomes. Yes, she does it. But she never “just” does it.
In her blogging over the past two years Mooney has become increasingly open and honest, sharing her personal struggles. She never complains of simply vents, but she lets us see that a great deal of her making the (seemingly) impossible possible depends on her never given up, even when the (seemingly) possible feels impossible.
In wonderful posts related to her experiences with “Opening Our Eyes,” Mooney shows us how she gets deeply inspired but then has serious doubts but that she still takes big chances anyway. She remains open to learning from diverse sources as she struggles with technical and creative challenges. And although she experiences many moments of sasisfied success, she also experiences extreme let downs. The common thread — what’s truly important — is that she keeps on going and actively makes things happen.
Viola Majewska with horse at her hippotherapy stable located outside Warsaw, Poland.
Positive Change From and Beyond Technology
When “Opening our Eyes” is completed, I have no doubt Continue reading “Eye-Opening Insights from Gail Mooney: A Still-Video Hybrid Movie Trailer Goes Viral”
