creative brief
Inside a L'Arche house, it feels less like a program and more like a household full of extended family members. Core members (those with disabilities) and assistants (those without disabilities) share meals, walk to work together, laugh at inside jokes, work through conflicts and serve one another with a level of selflessness and gentleness that inspired us.
Our greatest challenge in filming a L'Arche community was choosing a single storyline, as the homes are bursting with life and stories to tell.
The Insight
L'Arche is teeming with life, and there are more stories than are possible to tell.
Our Role
Concept Creation, Storyboards, Script Development, Production, Editing, Color Grading, Original Score, Audio Mix, Mastering
The Solution
Approach the project from a documentary standpoint - sit back and wait for those simple moments that reveal the depth of relationships in these special communities.
It would have been easy to make this story about how the L'Arche assistants are heroes, but it quickly became clear that this isn't at all how they view themselves. Megan Herron and the other assistants believe they benefit as much or more than the core members through their relationships. So we decided to make the story about the life transformation that happened in Megan through her friendship with Eileen, one of the core members.
With most projects, we can orchestrate scenes to fit into the story arc we've crafted ahead of time. But in this case, we had to just sit back and watch people going about their ordinary lives and wait for those simple interactions that would communicate the depth of relationships that have grown through years of intentional community life.
As one of the community members Bob Jacobs explains, "In community there's no us and them - there's we. So I'm not taking someone somewhere; they're not coming with me. We're going together."
