Preserving Kona's History... one story at a time

 

This whole thing started off as a film. A film that was supposed to be about Kona Coffee. You know, how it's grown, how it's processed. Where it's sold. That sort of thing. But as we started researching and talking to people, it became clear that their was a truly great story here in Kona. It just wasn't about coffee. It was about the people growing the coffee. What they'd lived through, what their ancestors had experienced. Everything that had led to their life on the Big Island of Hawaii.

 

I tend to be overly meticulous. And in my usual fashion I tried to gather as many stories as I could for the film. At about the time I started working with Deborah Miller, the editor of the film, I'd recorded 80 voice-only interviews and 15 on camera interviews filmed with a top notch crew.

 

Deb told me I had enough storylines for 10 movies and that we should think about creating a website to house all of the material that would inevitably not make it into the 120 minutes our final cut was supposed to be. This idea freed me. I was no longer confined to capturing the stories of Japanese Coffee Farmers, (though that's where my focus remians) for a single film. I could now capture the stories of all of Kona's people. 

 

So many great stories... so many great stories not being recorded. And so we had our new mission. Find people with a deep and true connection to Kona.  And listen to all of the amazing stories they told us about themselves and about this wonderful place. 

 

So far, we have captured over XXX hours of audio interviews and XXXX hours of high quality HD video interviews. We want to continue collecting these precious stories as quickly as we can, for once the story-teller is gone, so too are the stories.