Concerned Citizen

We decided to do our Concerned Citizen documentary on Jeremy Christensen. Jeremy is involved within the community by playing video games for Children's Miracle Network hospitals. Each year there is an event called Extra Life, wherein gamers get together and do a 24 hour gaming marathon, and they get sponsors to raise them money, which is then donated to the Children's Miracle Network.

Jeremy got involved with this charity after Jac, his son, was born with a hole in his heart. They were scared, but they took them to Primary Children’s hospital, where Jac underwent heart surgery when he was still under a year old. The operation went well, Jac made a quick recovery. This was a very eye-opening experience for Jeremy and his wife, who were first-time parents. They didn’t know what to expect, and they certainly didn’t want anything to happen to their little boy. After the whole operation, Jeremy found out about Extra Life by listening to a podcast, and, feeling grateful for the healthy recovery of his son, found the perfect way of giving back to those who are in similar situations. Thus, Jeremy got a team together and has been participating in Extra Life for the past 5 years now.

Jeremy could have just thanked the doctors and gone on his way, but instead he decided that he wanted to give back. The Extra Life charity as a whole raised over $5 million dollars this year, thanks to the generous support from sponsors and other charitable individuals. Jeremy was already a self-professed gamer, and so the combination of raising money for a relevant charity and the opportunity to play video games for 24 hours made the idea appeal to him all the more.

We really wanted this documentary to focus on Jeremy’s motivation for participating in Extra Life, and that is why the story about his son is right at the beginning. We didn’t want this to be an advertisement for Extra Life, but to go inside Jeremy’s head and to see why he was doing it, and specifically what he was doing about it. I found it very hard to boil down the entire story into less than 3 minutes, because there is so much more to say about the topic than that. But I feel that what is in this doc makes it personal and we as viewers understand exactly why Jeremy is doing what he is doing. I thought that it was appropriate to show Jeremy playing games with Jac, and to wrap up the doc by having some shots of them playing games together and wrestling and having a good time. Because, at the end of the day, the documentary is really about the relationship that Jeremy has with Jac.

In ARLENE GOLDBARD’s article on human culture, she states at the end that, “In the grand scheme of things, a [thing] like this is minuscule. Yet just such human stories... provide the true test of our capacity to inhabit the future.” This reminds me of Samwise’s speech at the stone window in The Two Towers, where he says, “...there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fightin’ for.” While Jeremy himself raised only $500 dollars this year, which may seem like a drop in the bucket, it is still a valuable contribution to those who are in need, and will provide a better future for someone else’s child who is in need.