Theater-On-The-Walk™ Documentary

Background
The Sun God, a masked persona 'performed' by Johnathan Recor, has brought controversy to the campus of Dartmouth College, a small-town Ivy-League institution. Part of "Theater-On-The-Walk™," the Sun God walks around campus and engages in idiosyncratic encounters with strangers. Officially launched in July 4th, 2009, "Theater-On-The-Walk™" provides the venue for expression of "life's emotional struggles as viewed through context of love, anger, joy, and sorrow." His routines include live group musical performance, impromptu theatrical skits, choreographed dance, exhibition of martial arts, and group photo shoots. Most notably, the inspiration for his sporadic street emotions that one could easily express when they were a child. Recor grew up in middle-class family in Connecticut and displayed immense passion for martial arts in forms of self-defense.
As a character and individual, Recor wants people to acknowledge how fragmented yet beautiful human emotion is. Immediately, Recor strikes me as one of Wes Anderson characters in his films. Nevertheless, the Sun God receives an ample dose of skepticism and misunderstanding from people who are indifferent toperformances stems from his emotional life experiences in search of love, friendship and sense of belonging. Recor claims that his humanity has been transformed by emotional toils of every-day life that are out of his realm of control. For example, he lists a series of stressful events like not having close friends, rejection and humiliation in relationships, confrontations with authority, and having to make a choice in life.
His stance on life struggles is vernacular and free from formality that often restrains expression of simple his mission. Those who are not receptive to his performance easily reduce The Sun God to be crazy, pseudo-hippy-like, attention-deficient, annoying, and threatening in most extreme cases. His pursuit truly covers wide spectrum of values ranging from open emotional discourse to self-imposed estrangement.
Approach
I am very fortunate to have The Sun God as my subject because Johnathan is very enthusiastic about the project. He is willing to collaborate on shooting logistics. Moreover, he guided me to relevant sources of interview and research. One of the most important aspects of my documentary film is to contextualize his idiosyncrasy in the cultural dynamics of small-college-town in rural New Hampshire. Ideally, his identity and objective as The Sun God would be revealed through his interaction with people and environment he is placed in. I plan to create a story arc of documentary that follows the narrative of the Sun God and Johnathan as a character and an individual.
At first, The Sun God will be introduced by Dartmouth Students based on their brief impressions of him. The Sun God will emerge in film through experimental narrative as a character. Then, I will use cinema-verite approach to follow The Sun God in action, performing and interacting with others. His interactions will culminate in 'Love March' that is scheduled to take place in spring term. The documentary will be complemented by various interviews those who have previous history with The Sun God and Johnathan himself. I will focus on the controversy of his existence by contrasting his search of love with skepticism that The Sun God faces. Also, I will use photo sequences and video footages taken by Johnathan to experiment with video techniques. I would like this documentary to not only document The Sun God in his element -- performing, interacting with people, interview -- but also convey the essence of his performance by all examining what lies behind his mask in both individual and cultural perspectives.

Created By: Daehyun An (Dartmouth Class: Film Studies 39) © 2010