[Nfbmo] FW: inquiry

[Gary Wunder]

Folks, perhaps we can help with this. Please help Ben if you can. See his
address below should you decide to respond.

 

 

 

From: Ben Radatz [mailto:ben at mk12.com] 
Sent: Thursday, October 03, 2013 8:05 PM
To: gwunder at earthlink.net
Subject: Re: inquiry

 

 

 

Gary, I thank you again for your help! Below are my questions and an
overview of the project. Please do forward it along to others who might be
interested. There is no deadline per se but we will be speaking with the
director later next week; it would be great to include some of this in our
discussion with him. 

Have a great weekend! 
Best,
Ben

///

BRIEF OVERVIEW: 

The film that we are working on involves a woman in her 30's who loses her
eyesight in a car accident at a very young age. She is able to make out
basic shapes, but for all intents and purposes cannot use her vision in a
meaningful sense. To compensate, she has an over-active imagination and
often tries to "fill in the blanks" with her own version of reality. Partway
into the film her eyesight is restored through surgery, and she must then
reconcile the reality she's created for herself over the years and her new
external reality. 

Much of the film will be told from her perspective, both before and after
her surgery. The following questions are to help us better understand what
it might be like to see things through her eyes. I acknowledge that there
are probably many relevant questions that it has not occurred to me to ask;
similarly, there may be some questions which are simply wrongheaded or
insensitive on my part, which I apologize for in advance. Please feel free
to skip or augment as you wish. I thank you sincerely for your help!

///

- Please describe in as much detail as possible the experience of seeing the
world with limited vision. 

- What are the larger day-to-day challenges of living with limited sight?

- How much "real world" visual information do you rely on vs. compensating
with your other senses? 

- Do you find this visual information to be more helpful or frustrating in
processing your environment? 

- Please describe the ways in which your other senses compensate. 

- Do you find that people with a similar impairment to yours compensate
differently?

- What is your memory of an event with limited visual recollection? Do you
find that it differs in a significant way from 1. people with a similar
impairment, 2. people with full vision?

- How common, if at all, are visual hallucinations and other sight
anomalies? 

- Do you find that you compensate for lack of visual input with such
hallucinations? i.e. does the brain try to fill in the gaps? 

- How deliberate are these hallucinations -- is it an automatic process or
founded in imagination, or both? 

- Did you at one point have full eyesight? If so, how does that experience
factor in to your current condition? 

- Have you had your eyesight restored, in full or part, through surgery? If
so, please describe as best you can:
            1. the psychological effect of re-introducing that sense.
            2. the physical transition, i.e. how long did it take you to
adjust to restored vision?
            3. the experience of seeing again for the first time. How is it
similar or different to how you see things now? 
            4. any unexpected or unexplained visual side-effects associated
with regaining vision. 


On Sep 20, 2013, at 9:55 AM, Gary Wunder wrote:




Bring on the questions. Will be glad to entertain them.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ben Radatz [mailto:ben at mk12.com] 
Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2013 1:14 PM
To: gwunder at earthlink.net
Subject: Re: inquiry

Hello Gary -- thank you for your response, and it's nice to meet you! I am
glad that my message wasn't too far out of left field. 

I don't want to be too formal, but I could put together a short list of
questions, and then perhaps some follow-ups to those based on the answers.
What do you think would be the best way to proceed? 

All the best,
Ben

On Sep 19, 2013, at 8:35 AM, Gary Wunder wrote:




Absolutely. We are delighted to help and this is exactly what the 
National Federation of the Blind is about. We have several folks in 
the KC area who will be delighted to talk with you, and I too am 
interested--I live in Columbia.

Warmly,

Gary Wunder - 573/874-1774

-----Original Message-----
From: Ben Radatz [mailto:ben at mk12.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2013 1:02 AM
To: info at nfbmo.org
Subject: inquiry

Hello -- my name is Ben Radatz; I am a filmmaker and also co-own an 
animation and special effects company here in KC called MK12. Among 
other things we do work on feature films and documentaries, which is 
why I am contacting you.

We were recently invited to contribute to a new film project, which 
unfortunately I cannot say much about, but I can disclose that the 
protagonist in the story is nearly blind and regains partial eyesight 
after surgery. In addition, a good portion of the film would be seen 
from her perspective, through her eyes, before and after the surgery. 
We were contacted to help visualize what that might look like.

It is important to us that we are accurate and honest in our 
depiction, and research can only get us so far. I would very much like 
to correspond with someone, or several people, who share a similar 
story and are comfortable speaking about it. Might your organization 
be a good resource for such an introduction? To be up-front, this 
would not be a consulting job, as the project is not yet official. It 
would just be a casual (and confidential, if they wish) conversation with

myself.




I thank you in advance for your help!
All the best,
Ben