The People You Meet on Facebook

I recently completed a film for my school's Art Show called Tempest. I finally got to uploading the movie on Youtube, after a countless number of times. It was actually very stressful. For some reason, they don't allow for a video longer than 10 minutes to be uploaded, even though I've seen videos there that are like 15 minutes long. I really didn't want to split my video in half because 1. I'm Lazy, and 2. I didn't want people getting lazy and only watching the first part, when clearly, my favourite parts come near the end (PART 2).

But since Youtube has not been cooperating, I had to split it up. As well, Youtube has also ruined the video quality of my movie....so I'm not exactly pleased with that. HOWEVER, many of my friends who have now seen the movie gave me fairly favourable reviews. But is it because they genuinely liked the movie, or are they just being nice? AGH..maybe I need some more confidence in my work!!

I got the idea of this film from many of the people I have seen and interacted with through Facebook and Social Networking Sites. I thought that several of these people behaved ridiculously. As rude as that sounds, I found people’s obsessions, reactions and behaviours online very amusing. Thus, I decided to write a script about it. Since I want to be a journalist, I added in the interviews to not only practice my skills as an interviewer, but to also see how my peers react to what they see on Facebook in a series of questions.

Originally, my movie was going to be using a completely different script. I was going to get actors to play the roles, but considering the time frame, I did not want to deal with scheduling conflicts, which have proved to not work well through past experiences. As well, my original script was not detailed enough, and it was too long! And so, I trashed it. As tedious as that sounds, I learned that sometimes doing it over is much more worth it!

Therefore, my friend Brian offered me another suggestion. On field trips, our film class watched two different films by an artist called Alison Kobayashi. In her work, she played all her characters and was able to get into her given characters really well. What I enjoyed about her movies was the fact that they did not require an expensive budget, therefore making her script and acting the more concentrated areas in her work. Seeing that I didn’t have many resources to work with, I decided to give her approach of making films a try.

So, as I proceeded with the filming....
I felt very awkward acting by myself in front of a camera at first. I knew that I could not get into character when other people were around. So all filming took place when I was alone. When I did get more comfortable, I found it a little difficult to memorize my script and at the same time film my scenes perfectly. (Which is normal for all actors!)

As for editing, I don't think there is much to say about here. I believe the art lies in the performance, script and characters. This was my first feature film, and I can say that I am quite happy with the end result. Realizing that I CAN complete a movie all by myself makes me want to create more short films!