Project 4 Summary

For my fourth and final project for DMA 201, I was tasked with making a short film, no longer than two minutes, trying to encapsulate a specific emotion. The emotion I chose was exhaustion.

On Exhaustion

Over the course of this semester I have spent several late nights staring at blank pages and timelines. When I do get some momentum going, I work at a place too slow for my own comfort. The late nights hurt my sleep schedule, and my dread of this process causes me to put off work sometimes, only ensuring the cycle continues in the end. My own awareness of my situation only makes me more frustrated with myself. I essentially wanted to summarize my current situation with this film.

With the music and the visuals, I wanted to give it a somewhat repetitive pace, while subtly ramping up my on-screen self’s frustration with his own lack of progress. This escalation can be heard in the music, which slowly introduces more layers to the instrumental as frustration grows. As frustration fades, my own will fades as well.

The tension leaves as quickly as it arrives. Instruments disappear from the music as my character’s will to go on fades. Dead silence arrives as the shot leaves the screen and cuts to my bed. All my fictional self wants to do anymore is just crawl under his sheets and pass out. Miles has resigned himself to the idea that he isn’t getting anything done tonight. As Miles goes to his bed, the same melody from earlier returns. Rather than being played on synths, the music is played on an organ, evoking a funeral, loss, failure, giving up.

Editing Process

I had a bit of a tough time getting used to Premiere’s UI. I wanted perfect sync with the rhythm of the cuts and the music, but I had hard time perfecting the timing. The final result is a bit sloppy.

As I continued assembling a timeline, I realized I didn’t quite have enough variety in the shots I had filmed. The second half of the short is more meandering and drawn out with shot lengths, whereas the first half had more rapid cuts. There are probably some errors in continuity and moments where I don’t clearly convey a lengthy passage of time. I was also very clumsy with keeping my timeline neat to begin with, I need to get a proper method going there if I’m going to continue editing over the next two years.

My favorite part of the short by far is the music, or rather that’s the part of the process that felt the most rewarding. I was surprised by how much intuition I had for how to pace the track as a whole, even if I was only using loops and not actually playing any of the digital instruments. I’m more disappointed in my collection of shots, likely the consequence of me filming with my phone in the middle of the night. I imagine creativity with a camera tends to run low in those kinds of circumstances. I just wish I had a greater visual versatility I guess.

Concluding Block

My first short film is rather sloppy, practically held together by tape, as if it was made by the version of me that exists in the short. Well, I have to start somewhere. Any accomplished person in a creative field made their way upward on mountains of garbage and practice, which allowed them to learn what they needed to make things they could actually be proud of. I have no reason to believe I am any different, I have a ways to go.