After reading the title of the short film, you might be questioning why Venn diagram?The idea comes from a quote Lauren Laverne said in an interview, "I am like the shaded area of a Venn Diagram." As a teenager or person experiencing an identity crisis or a person that has different passions, I had never related to something this much.
From the beginning, even before I started, I knew I wanted to do an experimental film. The reason behind it is 'Meshes in the afternoon' (Maya Daren,1943), a short film I watched during my A level Film studies which I was intrigued, fascinated, and inspired by. Since the day I've watched the film, I have been incorporating shadows in my work; it is now somewhat my auteur signature.
For 'Venn Diagram' sadly, I could not shoot some scenes because of the lockdown like the wall of shadows scene where I was going to use one of the studios in college, harsh lighting, and 3 of my friends to do three different actions. Another scene was the projector scene, which I was pretty excited about, but when I finally found a dark classroom in college and had the projector, it was too late. After that, I was disappointed, and I gave up on the project. However, during quarantine, I got bored and started experimenting with lights and shadows to take pictures. It reminded me of the first source of my inspiration 'Meshes of the Afternoon' which did have not only shadows but also surreal aesthetics, and it made me start experimenting with reflections and mirrors. That is when I had new scene ideas, for example at the end of the dream sequence where I cut out a question mark on a paper, stuck it to a toilet roll, used flash (cold, harsh light) to create a shadow of a question mark on an empty wall and hang my phone on my curtains rack to shoot.
Moreover, the idea of the split screen/half and half object (see storyboards) was an excellent idea, but when I shot it, I was not happy about it. At that time, I realized that I have a motif of 3 things/versions of me by accident, I wanted to keep it when I recognized it. Hence, I shot a scene where I am holding three objects that represent me in a mirror. Likewise, I shoot a scene towards the end of the short film where there's a shadow of me throwing three roses, which I found ironic because my name is Rose. Besides those scenes, I added some footage I had from previous shootings. The scene where I am sitting in the middle of an open Greek theatre and the fish swimming in the bath scene as establishing shots (change of location). I felt that they match the identity crisis, trapped and alone theme I was going for. They reminded me of the short film 'Swimmer' (Lynn Ramsay,2010) as I felt they were aesthetically pleasing, enigmatic, and the way they were shot created a definite meaning.
The narrative is circular like 'Curfew' (Christensen,2012), where the opening scene and the closing scene recall each other (Drawing of a Venn diagram). For obvious reasons, the narrative is non-linear because the genre is experimental, which I enjoyed while watching 'Mashes of the Afternoon' and 'Swimmer.' By that, I mean questioning, wondering, connecting clues, and placing myself in the film to figure out what is going on. For instance, in 'Swimmer' what was vibrant to me was the aesthetically pleasing cinematography where the swimmer was swimming, and I identified with it because I adore swimming. Someone else, however, might identify to it differently trying to piece clues together, and that is what I love about the film; It fully immerses the spectator in the world created by the director Lynne Ramsey and you just get lost in its beauty. Understandably 'Venn Diagram' does not entirely give the viewer the same experience as 'Swimmer.'
Nevertheless, I tried my best to target a more active audience that placed themselves in the film, picked the enigmas and clues, and interpreted them into what they identified with. For example, after showing the film to one of my friends and asked her what sense it made to her, she told me, "It looks more like art than storytelling, and it creates an emotional reaction. Even though I don't understand numbers, codes, and stuff like you do, I identified with what you were going through". That was exactly what I was aiming my viewers to experience.
Something that I gave a lot of attention to is the mise-en-scene and the mood/aesthetic I wanted to create. When Analysing' Curfew', I found interesting the small details the director used, like the cigarette, blade, and when it came to Richie's (main character) clothing colour scheme dark/dull that signify negative connotations and represent ill-being. In 'Gunfighter' from the setting, props, costumes to performance, and every other small detail gave the viewer the western experience. Since my main theme was identity crisis ,I represented the different versions of me in different outfits (classy = smart/science me ,edgy = the artistic/feminine /social me and casual = geeky/nerd me) and the same thing goes for props (computer/mouse/book = smart/science me , headphones/perfume bottle = the artistic/feminine /social me and comic books= geeky/nerd).
When someone is going through an identity crisis, they always question who they are or who they're supposed to be. When those questions came to me, I ran to "my safe place," which in my head is a computer where everything is programmed. I wanted to portray that in my short film. In ‘La Ricotta’(Pasolini,1963), the director used the colour change between his two different plots, where reality was in black and white, and the play was in colour. It was something interesting to experiment with at; first, I was going to do the same thing and portray reality in black and green (like in a computer) and imagination in colour. After editing and watching it, I felt that some of my props and settings lost their colour and meaning. Thus, I ended up using a layer of the binary code dripping and a light tint of green. However, there is a small twist, I implied the layer in the scenes of my day-to-day routine/life where I was in “my safe place” but when it came to the scenes where I was going to bed, in my dream and the shots that showed the change of location those were my “slap back to reality” that did not have a layer.
For sound, I was sure I wanted to use the song Gasoline by Halsey because the lyrics was another source of inspiration for ‘Venn Diagram.’ I was going to create my own version of it for copyright reasons, but I lost the cable that connects my keyboards to my computer, and I was running out of time. In consequence, I started searching the web and the free libraries for something similar, and I ended up going back to YouTube, where I found the violin version of the song. It is still copyright, but the violins made the scenes seem fast passed, and they added the tension I wanted. Additionally, after the dream sequence, I use the lowpass effect on the audio to ease the tension of violins as I wanted the spectator to endure the last momemnts. Once I put it all together, and I heard it, there was nothing else that could replace it .it fit perfectly.
Expect the non-diegetic song, I added a confusion sound (also from Youtube) on the dream sequence. I sang the lyrics of Gasoline “You can't wake up, this is not a dream, You're part of a machine, you are not a human being, With your face all made up, living on a screen, Low on self-esteem, so you run on gasoline” on to of it in a creepy way to match the mood. There are some diegetic sounds from the day-to-day scenes I didn’t remove to make the short film seem more realistic; especially in the rose’s scene, I kept the diegetic sound of the roses hitting the ground because of the indescribable feeling they created.
In conclusion, I enjoyed choosing something personal to explore that others my age or anyone experiencing an identity crisis can relate to. Even if they are not experiencing an identity crisis, they can just follow the clues, solve the enigmas, and interpret it to whatever they relate to. I am happy with how ‘Venn Diagram’ turned out even though along the way, I hit some bumps in the road, like the coronavirus, my cable, and ideas that did not work out how I expect them to. The film is not up to 4-5min because some college scenes like the projector, wall of shadows, and the class daydream scene I could not re-create at home, and I felt the extra scenes I created at home became repetitive, and they would make the film boring. I believe I did achieve my aim of creating an experimental film with a version of my world that attracts a more active audience with the ending product.
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