Filmmaking Focus

Filmmakers Joe Mickey and Sazzy Lee Varga started the Tibetan Photo Project to give a voice to Tibetans in exile. Out of this project came the film Voices in Exile as well as Visually and Respectfully Yours – The Story of the Tibetan Photo Project which tells the story of the Tibetan Photo Project.

“There have been many great photographic and film works on the Tibetans but most from a Western perspective that is pretty focused on Tibet as represented by the Dalai Lama,” says Joe. “There were few works, if any by Tibetans. Voices in Exile represents the evolution of the project into film and the idea is to create a voice directly from the Tibetan people in exile from their photos and films. Throughout the process we never asked for anything in the way of content. We try to provide technical help about lighting, etc. and then ask the Tibetans to show us what they feel the West needs to know about Tibetans or life in exile or their personal lives.”

Tenzin Wangden Andrugtsang was one of the Tibetans who helped them with Voices in Exile. “We met Tenzin Wangden Andrugtsang online when he was working in the office of the Dalai Lama. After some great still images we asked if he would be interested in making a film and the result is a year’s work to produce Voices in Exile. We supplied a camera and a computer and editing programs to make his film. We did this all by email and a lot of blind faith based on the remarkable quality of the still images he had been sending us.”

“We told Wangden to make the film he wanted to make. Like the project it had to be free of Western design. It had to be the Tibetan voice talking to the West. Wangden has been a teacher, he is a lifelong activist, he worked as a secretary in the office of the Dalai Lama and he is very well respected in the Tibetan community so he had access and ideas that will be very surprising to most Western viewers,” says Joe.

The two films that sprang from The Tibetan Photo Project are not the first films for either Joe or Sazzy. Sazzy has been making films since 1990 and Joe since the 1980s when he made surfing films, including the highly regarded Off the Wall II. When asked about the books and software that have helped them hone their craft Sazzy says, “Learn [the software programs] Movie Magic Budgeting and Movie Magic Scheduling; they are essential” while Joe had this to say, “I am pretty sure I have every book on the Final Cut program for editing, but this has not made me a whiz at the program. I can probably do about 25% of what this amazing program will do, but I need all the books because one book will offer language and explanation that registers on one aspect of the process and another will explain the solution for the next problem.”

Joe advises aspiring filmmakers to “know photography and respect your audience or the audience you hope to get. Know what to leave out of a shot. A shot with too much in it is like talking too much. You lose the point.”