Alongside fellow course mate, Akanksha, I am writing a twenty-twenty-something coming of age short film, chronically a stressful morning of a young woman, where she is forced to confront the trivialities and difficulties of romantic relationships, parental expectations, personal autonomy and general societal connection in the 21st century.
Our research regarding the topic has been generally quite organic. We wanted to keep the story rooted in reality as much as possible as to make it relatable and believable. We carry the belief that cinema can be a form of therapy, as well as a way to confront things we tend to talk about but never think about too deeply. A lot of the “research” of this project has been use sharing personal stories and experiences, and those of our immediate peers. Using these real experiences has helped us with writing dialogue in particular and has made sure that the themes we’ve covered have been relevant to the experience of the character we’re wiring and who she represents. Another form is research has literally just been watching films that cover similar themes or that have inspired the aesthetic of the film. A particularly valuable watch was Shiva Baby, a Mubi release that featured an interview with director/writer Emma Seligman. This film was a good reference for creating the everyday chaos that we wanted to embody in our short film, and Seligman’s insights into modern sexual politics proved to be very inspirational, and on some level changed the direction of the script, opening our eyes to themes adjacent to those we’d already realised, helping us to round out the story much further. At the moment I’m really unsure how this project will influence my future practice. As it is fairly removed from my current practice as a graphic designer, I’m mostly grateful for the opportunity to work on something new and exciting, as I’ve wanted to explore filmmaking for years but always gave into apprehension or complacency. I would like to be involved in filmmaking more in the future, despite it not directly feeding into my practice as a graphic designer, and have already started talks to be involved in the writing and co direction of another friends’ upcoming project. Despite the differences however, there are definitely transferable skills that I recognise between scriptwriting and graphic design. For the story in particular, we’ve really had to analyse human behaviour and try and make sense of it, something that is very important when designing practically anything, as everything we design is made to be interacted with by other humans, so having a decent sociological knowledge is important. I think have a strong level of literacy is important as a designer also, and that’s something that I have had the chance to practice here, particularly in a narrative sense. Also, on a more personal basis, it has been an interesting experience to navigate my own thoughts and feelings in this script, despite me baring little resemblance to the lead herself, parts of the script are definitely shaped by my own experiences and views, which has felt rewarding and fulfilling to be able to address these. This is something I hope to do more of in the future, in Kaufman-esque fashion.
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February 2023
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