Self-Evaluation

For my final project, I worked with Lydia and Kelsey on the short film Normal, which gives a brief look into the lives of two young girls coming to terms with sexual abuses that occurred in their pasts. The film was originally a scene from a longer script that Lydia had written a few years ago, and she adapted it to work as a stand-alone short piece. We knew from the beginning that Lydia wanted to run the camera, that Kelsey would operate the boom and do sound design, and that I would edit. Lydia asked me to direct, and I agreed, but I asked her to co-direct because she was already close to the project and because there were logistical reasons for both of us to direct: She could decide if the shot was good while looking at the camera, and I could give notes to the actresses, so neither one of us would have to worry about a lot of things all at one time. The idea was sort of to give both of us a break by working collaboratively. We wanted to make it dogme-style because a) Lydia wanted to make another dogme film before she graduated and b) because the subject matter called for a gritty, raw style to make it more real.

Lydia was the one to suggest Melissa Boatright as one of our actresses, and I had no arguments about it. I had just worked with Melissa on Paper Girl, and she let us put her in a paper dress and spray her with a hose in 30-degree weather, so I knew she was up for anything. She was also wonderful to work with; she was always positive, never complained, and respected the decisions I made as director. We were originally going to use Mariah Lee as well, since Lydia (and by default, Kelsey and I) had worked with her on all three senior projects and knew her well, but she had some scheduling conflicts, so we used Monica Wood in her place. This was an excellent decision because Monica and Melissa were wonderful.

Of course, there were things that we could—and should—have done differently. We should have thought more about the lighting we had available and blocked our actresses according to that. Most of the scene is very dark, and when I attempted to color correct it to make it lighter, it ended up looking washed-out. I returned it to its original state with only a few minor adjustments, and I don’t think the dark quality takes away from the power of the story at all, so we ended up lucky in that department. However, there were instances when watching the footage in the lab when I thought, “We should have moved them closer to that light,” or, “We should have turned them further or cheated them towards us a little.” There were also things I wish I had paid more attention to during filming, such as continuity. I was not focused on where they were setting the bottle down, so there were a couple of shots where the continuity was off with that; I managed to work around it pretty well, so I don’t think it was very noticeable, but I had some trouble deciding where to place some shots: specifically the shot from behind the actresses, looking over the pool. They had the bottle in between them, so I had to place it around shots in which we couldn’t see the bottle at all, so we could pretend that it had always been in between them. We also should have positioned the actresses or the camera a little better so that we could see entire faces; in some shots, specifically more close-up shots of Melissa, Monica’s face and hair obscure part of Melissa’s face.

Overall, we received positive feedback from the class. There were some comments about lighting and color, which I expected (especially about the color), but no one really had anything entirely negative to say about the project. This is encouraging to me, especially because I had just come from directing Paper Girl, which is 110% different than Normal in almost every possible way; it’s reassuring to know that I can get positive feedback from two projects that are almost complete opposites. I enjoyed working with Lydia and Kelsey. The atmosphere on set was very lighthearted, especially considering the subject of the film, and we had a good time making the project. I loved working with Melissa as well; she has amazing range and is willing to do almost anything she is asked to do. Monica also did a fantastic job, especially considering she jumped in on such short notice when Mariah’s schedule turned out to be an issue. The subject matter of the film is difficult, but we tried very hard to not make it a preachy, in-your-face kind of film, but rather just a portrait of two young girls dealing with similar traumatic experiences. I hope that this film can make a difference for someone, and I am happy to have been a part of bringing it to life.