Crafted and produced a short film story for a portrait film project assigned to us at University. Cultivating the idea came quite quick to me since our deadline was pretty short in combination of thinking about the practical essence of producing the short film within a few weeks over the course of November and December 2023.

Ideas that I have crafted and are in bedded in the WIP stories in my collections of drafts all stem from experiences I’ve had or encountered with other people or other peoples experiences. Although cliche, it’s natural to feel this kind of volatile emotions around the people.

In short, the synopsis of the short film is about a young girl repeatedly wronged by the people around her, even her loved one, thus she takes it upon herself to finally find peace of mind from all of this. Developing the project required consistent brainstorming the ideas that came more from relatable story narratives that I’m more responsive to personally in relation to the human/female experiences exploring the nature of internalised grudges, glimpse around certain aspects of human nature, self contained emotions and intentions. Additionally, alongside with project, I had been also tasked to create a research portfolio about the concept and inspirations behind the whole story (textually and visually). I employed visual mood boards and written short essays on the directors I had been inspired by ranging from Sofia Coppola to Krzysztof Kieślowski and Jean-Luc Godard unique storytelling/visual styles.

In young adolescent times, there is an idealisation of somewhat innocent experiences and dynamics with other people, a rose-tinted glass viewpoint in relationships whether in friendships or romantic relations, there is a tendency to think that everything in life is quite a linear line with no bumps, which is natural from that period of life. However, we are then introduced with something strongly contrasting the equilibrium that we were once accustomed to, a very hostile environment in both physical and mental sense. Although there is some optimisms of bringing back or replicating some essence of childhood nostalgia is something that we naturally strive and yearn, in reality, it is not always the case.

In the process of crafting the main character, I wanted to replicate this phenomenon in the character bringing in the binary opposition of the individual vs. hostile environment, the hostile environment being the people around her and how they treat her. I’ve tried to express relevant emotions and mood that relates to the universal experience of complicated platonic and romantic relationship in terms of encountering the wrong people to be in your life as the approach to friendship is different from adolescent lenses to adult lenses. These relevant emotions and moods were constructed to act as a motivational factor (cause and effect chain) for the character to fix her state of equilibrium into a new equilibrium, a.k.a peace of mind through her own way, conveyed through a violent manner.

Crafting the screenplay also led to consistent re-editing and adjusting had to be done in order to enhance the quality of the plot, from third-party perspective, I was able to finalise a well crafted screenplay for it to be formed into a short film.