DAY 4
HOW TO EAT A GIANT BOWL OF SPAGHETTI By Erin Levin Producer of Imba Means Sing, her first documentary feature, and freelance writer for The Huffington Post. @makinggoodnews
Y
ou know that blinking line on the bright white page on your computer begging you to write something worth sharing? That’s how many stories begin. Staring at the blinking line. That nagging, silent, unhelpful – yet incredibly inspiring and open-to-anything blinking line. That’s how this story begins as well… Now get your head off the blinking line and imagine sitting right next to you is a gigantic bowl of spaghetti. The biggest bowl you’ve ever seen. You love spaghetti. In fact, it’s your all-time favorite food. You always dreamed of enjoying a bowl of spaghetti that large. That significant. Now is your moment to dive into that delicious bowl headfirst and eat your heart out. My big bowl of spaghetti, my favorite thing in the world, is telling stories that I believe will make this world a better place. I mostly tell stories without the annoying yet invigorating blinking line on the computer screen. My stories are told through video. Sometimes I wish I felt called to fill bright white computer pages with beautiful words coming from that blinking line. But I know that God has clearly called me to tell stories with moving images instead. I’m not the one who makes the images look pretty, or the one that splices all of the content together on an editing timeline. I’m not even the one who develops the creative direction of the work. I
produce. Wikipedia says film producers “prepare and then supervise the making of a film… they helm the creative people as well as the accounting personnel.” Let me tell you what this film producer does. I eat spaghetti all day long and none of it ever seems to go away. No, really, that’s what I do (metaphorically, at least). I am crazy passionate about my film, Imba Means Sing. It’s about two kids – Angel and Moses – and their friends who come from living in extreme poverty in Uganda. They were too poor to attend school. But they were super talented and became members of the Grammy-nominated African Children’s Choir. My film crew and I have been following them on their world tour for over a year now, capturing incredible moments on camera. Former Choir members are now human rights attorneys, HIV/AIDS doctors and TV news anchors – all lifting their communities up on their own. I have no doubt that Moses will achieve his dream to be a pilot and that Angel will even reach hers – becoming Uganda’s first female President. Thinking about these kids and how to share their story with the world is my dream job, and it is what I do all… the... time. But my dream giant bowl of
Solving Problems
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