To support this film, please visit the Indiegogo page.
Full disclosure: I’m being compensated by filmmaker Daria Price to help the crowdfunding campaign for her film, Out on a Limb. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get on with the good stuff.
Daria Price is a filmmaker with a diverse background who works in both documentary and fiction films. She was a field producer and videographer on Canada's Vision TV documentary series, Twist of Faith, and on HDnet's World Report documentary, The Silent Epidemic: Diabetes in Kids, and she has produced, directed, and shot science and tech stories with Elsash-TV for APTN, BBC, and HDnet. Daria’s current project is a documentary called Out on a Limb.
DL: Tell me a little bit about Out on a Limb.
DP: It explores the science of prosthetics for amputees and other members of the limb-loss community, starting with currently available state-of-the-art prosthetics and moving on to what’s in development and to what’s on the horizon. This is a field that is exploding with innovations—and what was futuristic just a few years ago is occurring now. We’re in this Renaissance period for several reasons. Improvements in prosthetics always coincide with wars, but what’s happening now is unprecedented in large part because there is an interdisciplinarity in the sciences that didn’t exist before. Emerging technologies and advances in neuroscience are sending a synergistic mix of prosthetics, robotics, and bionics out of the lab and onto the bodies of amputees.
So this documentary takes us on a trip from Walter Reed Army Medical Center to university labs across the country to the Amputee Coalition’s camp for kids and shows us this intriguing science that is changing what it means to lose a limb.
DL: How did you get interested in the subject?
DP: I was on a shoot for something else at a Wired expo in New York, and came upon a booth where several amputees were demonstrating what were then the most advanced prosthetics available. I was pretty amazed as were all the other spectators. I just started to shoot their demonstrations, but not with any idea that I’d make a doc about it, really just because I found it fascinating and had the camera with me. The next day I returned with the camera and went straight to that booth again. Danny Gropper, a man who had, against all odds, survived burns to 80% of his body and eventually lost both of his hands and legs, was demonstrating how he could get out of his wheelchair and walk on his computerized C-Legs. He was also clowning around and I asked him and a prosthetist a few questions. That was it. Several months later, I looked at some of that footage and just for the hell of it started to edit it. When friends were around I’d show them the edit, again just because I found the technology so interesting. And they all found it fascinating and a subject they knew nothing about. I think the best part of documentary-making is that you can delve into a new world and learn about something entirely new. I finally decided that if the prosthetists I’d met that day and Danny were both amenable, I’d proceed and see where it led. They were agreeable. Two great guys, prosthetists at Progressive Orthotics and Prosthetics in Long Island, allowed me to hang around their clinic for a month, gave me a crash course in the subject, and when patients were amenable, I interviewed and covered them. I also spent a lot of time with Danny, who told me that he thought he had a better life than most of the people he knew. After hanging out with him and meeting his friends, he had me convinced. Plus I fell in love with his dog, a camera ham who tried to hog every shot and succeeded -- my favorite shot in the film is the one with the dog hogging the foreground and Danny walking towards us on his C-legs.
DL: It seems like the subject matter might be a hard sell? How have people in the amputee community and outside that community responded to your efforts so far?
DP: You’re right, it is a hard sell when you’re talking to documentary film funders. It’s science but not stylistically NOVA or Discovery; it certainly touches on issues and advocacy but is not a “social issue” film. However people seem to like exactly that—as one person said—“it teaches but doesn’t preach, it feels like we’re learning along with you." Very few people have seen the whole cut. One guy who did, the Army’s Chief of Public Affairs, called me up after viewing it and said he never called filmmakers, usually just emailed, but he wanted to personally tell me how impressed he was, found the film compelling and that even he learned a lot. When it’s done he’d like congressional members to see it so they understand why funding for prosthetics is so important, not just for soldiers and vets, but for all amputees.
The recent response to the trailer has been great. I wasn’t able to attend the recent Amputee Coalition convention in Kansas City, but I hear they were really excited about the trailer. I’m getting positive reaction within the prosthetic community, which is vast and international. Amputees and prosthetists are really pleased that someone bothered to make a film about this science—not the most sexy subject. People outside those specific communities have also reacted favorably to the trailer, but we really haven’t even started to put it out there yet. This is a film that tells the story of the science of prosthetics and its impact on amputees, rather than a film that follows a few characters getting prosthetics. I think anyone interested in science and technology, especially robotics, bionics, man and machine relationships, will find it interesting. And then aren’t we all interested in how a technology can help people learn to live with what they once thought unimaginable?
DL: I've seen the fine cut of Out on a Limb and one of the things I find fascinating is that there is no voice over narrator. The narrative of the film is told by the people you interviewed. It's very effective and subtle. I'm wondering why you opted for this rather than a voice over narrator?
DP: I decided rather early on that I didn't want an external omniscient narrator. That I wanted everyone to speak for themselves and that I wanted the audience to experience the process of learning along with me. I shot almost everything, except the sitdown interviews, verite, without setups (not the typical way to go on science docs) so things were happening as I shot. I knew it was madness when I started to edit, extremely difficult, not to mention time-consuming, to build the story this way rather than writing the script, edit the pictures to it, record narration, but I stuck with it because I felt it was more interesting and involving and that is what I've heard from viewers--that they're learning science but don't feel like they're watching a typical science documentary. I'm not for or against narration, but I'm a little tired of the formulaic science docs. So I guess I treated the characters--the prosthetics themselves--as one would people in a character-driven doc. I realize this does not fit into the follow-the-few-characters dogma, but quite honestly I'm bored with that too.
DL: Where are you in the process?
DP: I’ve done a fine cut, and we’ve just launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo. If I may, I’d like to encourage the people reading this to visit our page and support the project however they can. Share it on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. Tell a friend about it. Check out our perks and contribute monetarily if you can. Out on a Limb is a fiscally-sponsored project of the International Documentary Association (IDA), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, so contributions are tax deductible. Every little bit helps.
DL: I’m very interested in this whole crowdfunding idea. Will you check back with us as it progresses? Give us an update?
DP: Of course!
