A Mentor’s Journey

When you mentor you are working towards giving someone independence to achieve his or her own dream.

You are not doing for, but inspiring someone to action.

I made the short film above, inspired by Danielle’s dream for a dance drama where she danced both parts.

She wanted to make a film called Shadow Boxer.

I just wanted to show her how far I thought we could go with the footage we had.

She inspired and challenged me by asking me to do things I had never done with film before.

‘Can we do this June?’ she asked.

She knew I was still learning too but she had faith in my ability to learn and adapt.

I learnt what I could about the editing program I had and then taught her what her could, fully expecting her to take it a step further because this was her dream and her vision.

I created layers of film that she could mix and remix.

We worked in the time frames we had, but I knew she could do a lot of the editing herself as she had some film experience.  So we invested that time in finding the parts of the program she would need to master to achieve her goals.

I wanted her to know she could finish her project by herself.  She worked and worked on the film after the time I had with her came to an end.  Then one day she sent me the link – she was happy with it!

After many months I decided to revisit the original mentoring film and have since added more elements, like falling leaves and a closing sequence to round the music out. The subtle animation seems to work well with the piano.

I didn’t like the original colour, so I warmed it up.  So you see the mentor learns from the student and the student the mentor.  It is best when it’s a two way street.

Have you ever been a mentor?  What was easy and what was a challenge for you?

Mentoring Reference