Assignment 4 – Reflection

Her, or the Shadows?

Individual Reflection: by Jack Filiba

Film by: Jack, Lara, and Jerry.

For this project, my group decided to take the ambitious-yet-frustrating approach of attempting to tell a story entirely on a computer screen. To do this, we spent time screen recording using a program called OBS that allowed us to view the character’s screen as they interacted with different items on their computer like emails and photos.

In order to follow this approach, our group discussed the various pieces of media that we had seen that have been filmed through applications like Zoom. While admittedly pretty rare, we did find a few films like Host which were filmed entirely on a computer screen. While horror seemed like a popular genre choice for this format, we wanted to try to step outside that comfort zone by creating a film that serves as a psychological thriller. 

The plotline of our film only arrived late into our planning process. We knew what elements we wanted to use in order to tell the story but it was late into one of our Zoom calls when Lara mentioned something that immediately caught all of our attention. Her Dad, a few years prior, had arrived in Melbourne but pretended not to be there in order to surprise her. Throughout this process, he even left little clues about his whereabouts.

This gave us the idea to create a psychological thriller in which a woman is convinced that her deceased friend is still alive. Since one of the core elements of the genre is questioning the reliability of the narrator, we wanted to emphasize the protagonist’s increasing rejection of reality. As the film progresses, her video diary entries become more frantic and her friend’s pleas to break her out of her quest serve as a much-needed lifeline.

We were also very inspired by elements of psychological thrillers such as eerie music, a mood of anxiety and dread, themes of loss, the questioning of reality, montage as a narrative device, and the use of a cliff-hanger ending. While the “video diary” narrative format that we use to tell the story limited us in terms of the types of shots that could plausibly be used in the film, the final lingering shot that was recorded with Lara’s phone was lifted straight out of a movie like Inception.

Filming almost entirely on a computer screen gave us the opportunity to capture many of the shared collective feelings that are unique to the last couple of years. During this time of isolation throughout the pandemic, I think that many people felt like they were starting to go stir crazy. We thought that exploring this would allow us to capture this unique moment while also serving as an interesting twist on the psychological thriller genre. We used pandemic-induced isolation, rather than explicit mental illness, as a way of questioning our protagonist’s sense of reality.

Our pre-production process was a unique experience for everyone involved. While we mapped out all of our potential shots and created a markup, the fact that we were recording using on-screen software and through interfaces edited in Photoshop meant that we could actually go back and tinker with each individual element on the screen. This gave us the opportunity to keep experimenting with the film and redoing shots in post-production. As a result, it soon turned into a long process in which we strayed from our planning as a result of finding better and better ways to tell this story to the degree that our time and technological affordances allowed.  

Script | Script Markup

Personally, I am happy with the final result. While it would have been far easier to film with cameras or our phones, this approach allowed us to push the knowledge that we gained throughout the course to its limits and attempt something experimental.

I’m also very grateful for the feedback that was provided to us after our presentation, as it encouraged us to essentially redo the film from scratch with an increased emphasis on the protagonist speaking to the camera. This eliminated the need for the responder to constantly read the screen and allows for a more intimate relationship between the audience and our protagonist—despite the fact that the character is primarily interacting with a webcam.

I learned a lot about using supplementary tools like Photoshop and OBS to support my Premiere editing throughout this process. Next time, I’d love to apply these new skills earlier in the process to ensure that my group does not face as steep a time crunch as we did this time around. I also learned many shortcuts along the way that would have greatly reduced our post-processing time. 

While contradictory to my previous written reflection in which I learned about the value of pre-production, I actually think we spent too long planning this film. Especially since it turned out that a lot of what we filmed would later be adjusted through both Photoshop and Premiere. Further, all of the individual shots were filmed together across 7 or 8 lengthy Zoom and Messenger calls, which may have dipped into our editing time. As a result, increased independence within the team may have actually helped the final project—which is something I’ll keep in mind moving forward.

Notably, while our film makes use of screen recording and remote conferencing apps like Zoom, it still would have been significantly easier to film this project in-person. Doing so would have allowed us to create more consistent screen recorded moments that required less editing in order to blend them together. Being together would have also allowed us to record more footage that we could use to seamlessly jump between our protagonist and her screen. For future projects, I’d love to see how similar experiments turn out when getting to physically work with other students in Melbourne. 

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