Evaluation

The subject of our film was a difficult one to make, especially for me. I thought it would be easier, and I thought it wouldn’t have affected me as it did. I thought telling my story, would give what happened some sort of silver lining. However the only silver lining I find in it is the fact that I have had people reach out to me after watching it, people in the same situation I was, asking for help and advice.

Early on I knew I wanted to do the story justice. I didn’t want to make a two-minute snippet of what happened as the brief required. If I was going to do this, I was going to do it right, and that meant reading through my old journals, and in order to create an honest, truthful version of what happened, I had to get back into that mind-set.  I had to understand why I felt that way, where my fall into depression and self-harm started, and how I crawled out of it. To really remember how things were, and to tell it truthfully I felt I had to try and understand my past self more than I currently did, because the truth is being in depression is a strange state of mind, I did a lot of things I would never do now, I often behaved in a cruel and irrational way to people without thinking, I was a different person back then. I am stronger, calmer and kinder for what I went through but re-visiting that place was no easy task. Although I hid this from most people involved.

Feeling so low and numb that you would rather not exist is almost impossible for me to imagine now. With the only thing that’s keeping you from doing anything about it is the thought of your loved ones identifying the body. Understanding this, and knowing you are capable of feeling this way is upsetting, especially when you realise you have many friends who still feel this way. It’s easy to put on a brave face and hide behind the mask of jokes and anonymity, but the suffocating the truth makes it harder to deal with, keeping a secret like that is hard to do when dealing with deadlines, holding down a job and making your work as good as you can.

After understanding myself I was able to dissect the years into a few pages, unaware at first that film was going to be non-dialogue, I sat at my computer, baffled at what to say, what do you say to start? How do you tell a story unlike anything I have done before, and one that is so personal you know it has to be done right? Rather than starting at the beginning, as I could not, I decided to start at the end. Before going back, and using techniques to tell years of history in only a few seconds. I chose to film only a few moments displaying what I think signified a lot.

The film making process was stressful and surreal, seeing my twin dress and act as I did, was similar to watching your own life in third person, watching the events unfold but again feeling powerless to change them. Most of them were difficult, but I managed them without breaking in public. However the self harm scene I found a bit too difficult at times, watching what looked like me, in the same location, doing the exact same thing I was, we even looked at my own scars to replicate exactly what it looked like, was too difficult at times, and I welled up a few times, but wiped it away and finished the scene. I had many set backs, which infuriated me as they were the fault of the people who were supposed to be helping me. Not being given a boom mic cable that attached to the sound recorder meant that I either had to cut out all background sound, or ‘make do’ with whatever the 5d picked up. ‘Making do’ is not something I expect for £8,500 a year. And it wasn’t even due to the equipment; it was the same problem that has happened to every single one of my film productions. A single person who’s incompetence nearly cost me a very delicate film, if I had planned for dialogue to be in this film, it would have been ruined for me, and with the way I was feeling it would hardly have gone down well.  I would not have been able to re-schedule the filming date as I had 17 members of cast and crew who had busy lives with jobs and university who had managed to take time out to help me. I was however able to make do and I do not think it affected the film too much in the end, but it was a very close call.

The editing process was tedious, going wrong many times, and generally taking a long time to render and etc, due to the film running over 12 minutes. I then had to cut all this down to just 2 minutes for the brief’s version, however I think the 12 minute version is much more powerful. We had an outside source write and compose the soundtrack especially for us after giving him some music that we wanted it to feel like atmospherically. I edited the film and the music that was written to fit it, and I think gave it a powerful kick.

I am very proud of everyone involved, I think the acting, camera work, and all round helping out was brilliant. I was very happy with the amount of people who wanted to help; it meant a lot to me that everyone worked so hard on the film in order to get it right. I am tremendously pleased with the film, and think it’s turned out very powerful and rewarding. I am considering submitting it to future competitions as only the 2-minute version can be submitted to this brief. Whilst I have noticed that I have got a lot of praise for the film, and my bravery in telling the story, I think its important to realise I was not the only one who suffered, having your twin do this to themselves and feeling powerless to stop it is beyond difficult I’m sure. The subject is close to home for everyone involved and I think it’s important to remember that as well, as I could not have made it without the whole team’s efforts.