My first experience with self-injury came in 2004. That year I met two young women through mutual friends. Both women happened to be younger than me and neither of them knew each other before I introduced them. Prior to meeting Amanda and Courtney I had never heard of this behavior before. It seemed different than tattooing and piercing which seemed to be more socially acceptable. I spent many months getting to know both of them and during this time I began talking to people about wanting to make a film on the subject. Nearly everyone I talked to had a story about someone they knew - a daughter, co-worker, friend, or even someone they just saw on the subway - who cut themselves. It was my experiences with Amanda, however, that began to make the film come to fruition. I finally decided to move from Los Angeles to St. Louis, where Amanda was, to make this film and I began spending a lot of time with Amanda; first getting to know her, and then as a friendly interviewer behind a camera. During a several month period I shot over nine hours of interviews with her on several occasions. We discussed topics ranging from her experiences with the medical establishment to her hopes and dreams of someday overcoming the sexual abuse she suffered as a child. After I finished the interviews I began to read several books on the topic of self-injury while concurrently organizing the footage and making a list of all the questions I asked her and the topics we discussed. I then formed these into a story and began logging and digitizing footage on the editing system I had acquired (I was spending a lot of my saved money on the film). I then spent several months refining that footage into what I think to be a concise and coherent story of Amanda's self-injury. In doing this it was very important to come up with a style of story-telling and editing that seemed to relate to Amanda's story. |
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