Portrait of a Self Portrait

 So this latest project, in my opinion, will be much easier than the ones prior. The unfortunate thing is my lack of talent as a director, which I will be the first to admit that I'm not a great filmmaker (I'm not even an average one), but I do have a strong idea of what I want to do for my self-portrait. And it’s an idea that I have been playing around with since the beginning of this class. I wanted to focus on my struggles as a 13-14 year old who was bullied throughout middle school and the start of high school; the loneliness, the thoughts of suicide running through my mind, and the desire to speak out but being restrained by your own self. Yes, I get that this is probably the most clichéd topic to do for an experimental film. Yes, I understand that many film students my age have done similar topics to do, so what will make mine so different? And to answer that question, I have no idea. I have images in my head with how I want it to look. Like I would love to incorporate neon lighting because I’m a sucker for how they look and I adore the pulpy/retro/sci-fi aesthetic it invokes. I had an idea of using a set of string lights and contorting them around my body, like a vine or barbwire. I also thought of maneuvering the lights to look like a noose and having it hang from the shower rod. I want clips of me fully clothed and underwater. And I’m currently toying around with whether I want to shoot this on digital or film. I love the grainy, worn down look that film gives for experimental films, and I view it as enhancing the film, giving it character. But because of short timespan, and the shitty luck I had with the last film assignment, digital seems like a safer bet. I don’t know if I want to use sound because I like the Stan Brakhage effect of having the images speak for themselves. And with the self-portrait involving suicide, an uncomfortable and triggering topic for many, having music would seem to take the power away. I’m nervous that I am doing this film on my own, and I can only hope that it will look somewhat decent, but I am truly looking forward to this project.