Filmmaker Waits a Decade Between Shoots to Capture the Same People at 50 Then 60
A filmmaker has created a fascinating video where he captures 50-year-old people saying “50” and then, ten years later, he captures those same people saying “60.”
Jeroen Wolf is known for his “0-100 years” videos where he finds 100 people aged 1-100 and gets them to say their age into the camera. He has created the wildly popular videos in the U.S., China, and his home country of the Netherlands.
But his latest video, “50 Turned 60”, wasn’t initially planned the way it turned out. Wolf tells PetaPixel he has been working on a “horizontal series” where he finds 10 people aged 10, 20 aged 20, et cetera.
“I started out making ’50’ when I was about to turn 50. As an extra dimension, I decided to film only people I knew from school,” he explains.
“I knew I wanted to revisit the people at 60 but my original idea was to film 60×60 which meant I had to find 10 extra people.”
But when he compared the “60” video portraits to the “50” ones he realized he had struck “true documentary gold.”
“So then I decided to release two videos: ’50 Turns 60′ and ’60’ as a standalone, which will be released next month. It features 10 new faces, 10 more people I had to find,” he adds.
‘Deeply Moving’
The reaction to the video online have been “overwhelmingly positive,” says Wolf who adds that, “People are touched by these faces, these lives, even if they don’t know them, they see themselves mirrored in them.”
Wolf knows the people in the video and says the project was a great way to revisit old acquaintances, friends, and loves. Sadly, two people he filmed for “50” had died before reaching 60-years-old.
“I spent an hour to several hours talking to every single person I portrayed. I am a curious person, a documentary maker by nature, and found it fascinating and moving to hear their life stories,” he says.
“The most difficult part was finding everyone again, I lost a lot of correspondence, and not knowing everyone’s birthday. I wanted to include some people but I was too late 10 years ago and I was too late at 60 as well, they had already turned 51 or 61.”
Wolf says the video makes the viewer think about life and death, the meaning of life, existence, time, and about life goals.
“But it was also confrontational for some people in the video,” Wolf adds. “We are getting old. And with some, it shows more than with others.”
“No one has told me they were shocked but some people didn’t want to look at themselves,” he continues. “But they are great characters and being part of this video creates a bond. I am sure everyone will be part of it again for ’70’. If it is meant to be.”
Heartwarmingly, the video has brought his old group of pals back together again and this summer a reunion is being organized. “And we will all act like we’re 16, no doubt,” adds Wolf.
More of Wolf’s videos can be seen on his YouTube channel and website.
Image credits: Jeroen Wolf/ImagineVideo
