Guest Site: Making A Nudist Documentary Film with FKK

Note from Jordan & Felicity: About two months ago, we were contacted by a film student from Pratt Institute. Her name was Dana, and as her final project for one of her classes, she desired to make a short documentary about FKK / naturism.
We consented to get it done in exchange for her writing an article about her experience to make the picture. So this is her narrative below, along with her documentary by the end!
Naturist documentary film
Guest blog by: Dana Schlieman
Nudist Documentary - My first encounter with documentary filmmaking presented the opportunity to force myself out of my comfort zone and explore something I had never done before. My taste has ever been narrative, fiction movie, and the appointment of a 5-10 minute documentary by my Non-Fiction Mp4 professor made me queasy and sweaty with anxiety.
I spent another week wracking my brain for a area that would be interesting to an audience but that was additionally manageable for someone with my level of expertise (which was low). Subjects drifted in and out of my mind and my thoughts rambled on to other things, like what it must actually be like to be colorblind, and how my class might react to the presence of nudity in a peer's picture. I froze in my bed as this idea crystallized into a project proposal: an exploration of modern naturists in New York and how they lived their lives within society.
The job fast started to come together within my mind's eye as I reached for my phone to start my research. Suddenly I hit a wall. I discovered that naturist resorts and beaches were closed down in late September, for the duration of the winter months. It was the middle of October now, and my notion fell apart as fast as it had been built up. I backtracked, dejected and unenthused, to the topic of colorblindness and landed on this as the topic for my picture. It was boring, but at least it was not seasonal.
On proposal day in class, I decided to present the theory for my nudist film anyhow, to ensure my professor could see that I was more fascinating than my colorblind undertaking suggested. I discussed the idea with my course, as well as the challenges I'd encountered, and explained why I would be unable to carry this project out. The complete class, who appeared to have tuned me out while I talked about colorblindness, suddenly pricked their ears as I told them my first notion. They stared at me for a couple of seconds when I was finished, and I stared back, my ears burning.
You have to do that endeavor, my classmates told me, with more earnestness than I'd ever received from them. I looked to my professor for help, and he stared at me also. It really does sound wonderful, he told me.
I argued with them for a little while as they threw their ideas at me. They insisted that there had to be a solution.
Speak with the individuals who run a resort even if they are not functioning right now, one classmate said. I asked her what I 'd film in that case apart from the interviews.
A movie about nudism should actually have unclothed people inside, shouldn't it? I asked them. http://nudistshots.com went back and forth like this for some time before my professor stopped us.
Only consider it, he explained. The colorblind thing sounds good. I looked up at him hopefully. But the naturism sounds extremely great.
I got online after class that day and buckled down. Ultimately, Google rewarded me with the Naturist Portal website.
Everything about FKK was so welcoming that I was instantly comfortable, and I'm easily made uneasy in most scenarios. They talked about naturism and naturism the manner I might tell someone my feelings for artwork and my pets. It was clear how dear their mission was to them, and how important it was to them to remove the stigma surrounding nudity, and I quickly found my own feelings about it-that it should be private and reserved for a few very specific situations-coming into question.
Soon I was harassed with a few very real concerns. For starters, I'm al read y rather nervous at the idea of speaking to strangers (my parents had to purchase my food for me in restaurants until I was about 16). I worried that, in my ignorance of this topic that I was so new to, I 'd say or ask something accidentally offensive and they'd hate me. Additionally , I worried that they'd be too strange for me to cope with and I 'd need to back out of the commitment I was intending to make with them, another notion that gives me heart palpitations.
I walked from my first meeting with Felicity and Jordan astounded at one basic fact: They were so pleasant, I told my friends when I got home. The pair had explained their no-judgment way of life to me, and I could tell they weren't saying it the way other people say it; they truly meant it. I sat on the subway on my way back from their flat feeling significantly more than a little shocked at how unaccustomed I 'm to people being so friendly and accommodating. I know I am not like that, and I could not think of a single reason why.
The day we filmed, I kept catching myself thinking: This all looks so normal. I found my dialog with Jordan more arousing than anything I had learned from my school professors in the past year-and-a-half, and with Felicity I felt like I was talking into a friend, one who merely didn't happen to be wearing clothes. And I think all three of us expected me to be uncomfortable, but I actually was not.
Everyone I told about my project was extremely curious about it. It seemed that everyone expected some form of scandal, for me to be taken captive and forced to join a nude cult or something. I was almost smug at how small dirt I had for them. I felt strangely faithful to the naturist community, like I was now a tiny part of the fight to shed light on the body image and censoring issues that my themes had brought to my attention. The complete experience even got me working on my own body image issues and other private things that I Have never actually thought about before.
And to anyone who still asks me, when talking about my project, Wasn't that really uncomfortable? all I can do is shrug and answer honestly: No.
If http://rudefly.us are wondering about the organ that shows on the screen within the documentary, it is a joke commercial for a radio station in Australia and can be seen on vimeo channel here.
The vulva that also showed on the screen is a unique music video of singing vulvae and can be seen on vimeo here.
My Expertise Making A Nudist Documentary was released by - Young Naturists and Naturists America
Tags: documentary, pictures, societal nudity
Category: Naturism and Naturism, Nudist Site, Social Nudity Sites
About the Author (Author Profile)
Guest blogs written alone for Naturist Portal.