I finished my very first original shortfilm. Previous to this I have made some clips for school assignments but now I got to really work on my own idea.
Escapism it about a working girl that deals with life like the rest of us. She does what society expects of her, works hard, earns her wage and blends in perfectly well. When she gets home she can finally rest for a moment and escape to her lands of imagination and be free from reality's pressure, just for a moment.
Reflection
How & Why
The idea was inspired by the Music Video of Sensual World by Kate Bush. I have known the song for a good while and ever since I first saw it I fell in love with how she just danced through that forest without a care in the world, singing and vibing to her own song. Recently I have had some troubles with knowing what I want. I dropped out of University, not even finishing my first year. I had the classic, "what should I do, am I wasting my time. I should do something prestigious because in High School they told me I'm smart" breakdown. And from that breakdown I came up with the idea for Escapism!
The working girl represents everyone who forces themselves to be someone who they are not, they are what expectations make them to be, may that be that from their parents, teachers, bosses or themselves. I therefore deliberately chose for colder and darker lighting for the scenes that she is coming home.
The daydream represents who they are at heart. Who they actually want to be. The dreams they had as kids or still have. I myself use my imagination if I ever want to escape reality. The dancing girl in the forest represents someone who is free and lives their life with little worry and fully embraces who they are.
I myself enjoy fantasy a lot and want to work to create fantasy movies in the future. The dream sequence was a way for me to experiment with some fantasy elements for the first time. I wanted the whole dream to feel like this magical haze, I wanted to make the girl feel like she was magical, hence the glowing (or attempt to make her glow in the forest).
So I wrote the script, made a Pinterest Board for inspiration, baught a flashlight, grabbed my brother's flashlight and started to film the shots as my brother's girlfriend was kind enough to be my actress.
Moodboard I made for inspiration:
https://pin.it/76FgaGM
Improvement worthy
- Think about light, make sure it's even in shots to keep it cohesive. Also make sure to pinpoint a source of light
- AUDIO, AUDIO, AUDIO. Probably should fix a mic or something to dim out the room and focus the foreground.
- The forest daydream scene is too long
- The wake-up snap could be cleaner for sure
What I'm proud of
- Shooting the footage in a single day
- Being able to use DaVinci Resolve
- Getting some really nice shots
- The choice of music
- The colour grading
What I learned
- Editing footage takes a lot of patience
- Getting the sound right is a lot harder than I would have thought
- Picking the right music makes a world of difference
- Multiple versions will help improve the final version (which I did not do in this case)
