Critical Reflection

Chrysanthemum is a film that portrays the mind of a young lesbian girl. The film does not tackle LGBTQ+ identities as a singular thought, but rather what a general group of the community may go through, when liking someone of the same gender. There is that lurking thought at the back of their head that if they confess, their entire relationship will be broken, which is what the Hanahaki Disease is meant to represent. A love so strong that you can only feel sick to your stomach because you cannot do anything about it. The Victim keeps the Hanahaki Disease due to her fear that their friendship may end; she keeps her secret and never says anything about it. The film follows the character through her compression of emotions, yearning and her ultimate demise of feelings.

There is a vast amount of stigmatization towards those who are in the LGBTQ+ community and I did not want my film to be seen in that way at any point. In reality, they are just like everyone else and just happen to like those of the same gender, and that is it. The film keeps the LGBTQ ideologies on the low for that reason; there is nothing different about a lesbian romance and a straight romance. The idea of the Victim being lesbian is not the driving force of the film, rather the compression of feelings and emotions for who she is the force; the label means nothing but representation, the emotions are everything. 

My film follows a tragic romance genre. The tragic romance is fulfilled through the denial of the two characters ending up together, and going to the point where one of them dies. Neither character makes many advancements in romance towards each other, leading the audience to believe that their relationship will go nowhere. However, there are moments (where the Victim places the flower in the Love Interest's hair) that plays into the romance genre, also leading the audience to hope they confess their feelings. There is a pull on the denial and expectations that constantly leads the audience to believe one thing, then switch back over to the next one (the bathroom scene leading the audience to believe something is going to happen, then the book scene continuing that wonder with the negative and dangerous wording, to the park scene where everything has calmed down and they are happy together again).

As for the fantasy genre, it plays with the Hanahaki Disease trope, of hopeless desire weighing on a person's lungs as they fight themselves to not confess their feelings. Since this is an extremely niche trope, I could battle the typical romance conventions with the overpowering, timing disease, forcing the victim to make a decision. In real life, you could continuously suppress these feelings, but with the trope, it shows what suppression can do to you.

The Hanahaki Disease book.

The branding for the film involves flower related words and a visual dark color. The postcard uses both flowers and dark colors to contrast against the typical postcard (that has brighter colors). My postcard keeps the coloring quite dark, besides some of the drawn flowers which brings more attention to them. The use of flowers are also apparent in the Social Media teaser posts, that uses 'sprout' to have the audience thinking about what that message could mean and that it relates to nature.

The front of the postcard.

The film company itself is meant to create extremely dark films, even representing that by the dull color of the logo and symbolism of the symbols. Through the company, the Twitter page allows the company to communicate with the audience in a professional way. The purpose for the account was to provide updates, teasers, cast information, etc. not to communicate with the audience one on one. However, that doesn't mean the teasers cannot be a way for the audience to engage. The cryptic teaser is meant to have the audience thinking and communicating with each other about what that could mean; it should be a collaborative experience between the audience trying to decode the message. On the back of the postcard, there is contact information that leads directly to the company, where concerns can be discussed; however, that is for a professional manner.

The film company logo.

The cryptic teaser.

The back of the postcard.

Chrysanthemum is extremely important to me because of how real it is compared to many other LGBTQ stories. Most of the time, the stories are watered down to just being 'gay' and the real emotion for each character is not explored and developed, or they delve into one sexuality. My film ensures that the main thing the audience understands are the emotions for the Victim (and then later on the Love Interest's as well). It also is a representation of myself and how I have dealt with my emotions as a lesbian myself. The suppression, confusion and rejection for myself when I discovered who I was, to the desire and realization that it is okay to be who I am. Chrysanthemum is the opposite of what I want to be; it is a reminder to stop compressing and love who ever you want to.

Project Components

Short Film:

Minor Task A: Social Media Page

 

 

The profile for the Social Media Task.

The first post.

The second post.

The third post

The forth post.

The fifth post.

Minor Task B: Postcard Advertisement 

 

Google Backup Document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iqlr7jBi_XPnU3EEWvbm4IaN5obrUXAUatRzjXqb40o/edit?usp=sharing 

69. Audio Issues

The audio is an absolute mess. There are times when one of would continue talking after we should've stayed quiet, to give me editing room, but we didn't and it's difficult to manage the audios. Plus, there was a lack of wild sound, so I was copy and pasting previous audios to try to cover the poor background noise.

Most of the time there was a problem with the audio takes being too perfect, that even when placed over wild sound, it was way too clear and you can tell that the audios don't match.

The only way I could fix these issues was to lower the volume of the clips, fade them into each other and lower/raise the wild sound. 

What the audio is like in Rush. Blue is muted, original audio. Yellow is wild sound and red is speaking audio.

68: Music

The music is quite simple and similar throughout the whole film, as to not overwhelm the audience with a few different songs within 5 minutes. The music is basically the same with only a few minor adjustments.

The beginning, happy song.

This first song is the base line for the rest of the music. It is in a higher key, to give a happy feel.

The middle, chaotic song.

This song has a few notes changed to a lower one and the entire song has gone to a middle key. The red beats at the bottom represent V's heartbeat during the chaotic scene. 

The neutral, simple song.

This last song is meant to be a filler for areas that need music, but not as impactful as the other songs are. During the walking scenes of the park, the characters are happy, but having the first song play again would be too much within the short amount of time. This song also comes back at the end to play during the credits because it's the neutral feeling song. If I created another song, for sadness, I feel that would've been way too much and would overwhelm the audience.

67. Postcard (Back)

The back of the postcard will have all the information for contact and anything related to the creation of the film.

I decided to handwrite the text, not because I wanted to but because PhotoShop was breaking and I didn't want to fight with it. I have no idea what was happening, but the text kept multiplying and there was no way to remove it, so I decided to write it out instead.

PhotoShop breaking. The repeating 'Director:' text all over the canvas.

The first line is a 'synopsis' of the film, also what the used in the social media post. It is in one of the larger text sizes because of its importance.

The second line is the director and my name, to show who created the film.

Lines 3-6 are ways to contact the company. There are multiple ways to get ahold of them, which should lead to easy and fast communication. 

The last line is the date the film is releasing. It is in red to contrast with the background and the previous texts, to ensure that it is not looked over. 

The finished postcard (back).

66. Social Media Post (Reveal)

This is the post where the trailer is dropped and the release date is revealed. 

The trailer would be very focused on the romance side, and reveal the other character. This is meant to keep the viewers still in the dark about what the actual film is still about. There could be a flash of a moment where there is blood, but not for long. 

It also reveals the director on who made the film. 

 

The trailer and reveal of the film.

65. Social Media Post (Teaser)

This tweet give a lot more information; it is the front of the postcard. It introduces a character and a flower coming out of her mouth. Some viewers could recognize that it is the Hanahaki Disease, but the chance is quite slim. 

The text reveals that the film will be 'coming soon' to the viewers, meaning they will get their answer soon and stick around to figure out what the film is about. 

The dark colors of the postcard should have people question whether the story will be a happy or a sad one. 

 

The postcard teaser post.

64. Social Media Post (Teaser)

This post is meant to be the film title reveal, using the actual diegetic title from the film.

It reveals that the relative concept of the film, that it revolves around Chrysanthemums. There isn't much that is given away with the picture and should continue to leave followers curious about the film and further build suspense.

The tweet with the title reveal.

63. Social Media Post (Teaser)

This post is meant to be cryptic and have followers raise questions about what the message is supposed to mean. It is a watered-down version of the Hanahaki Disease. If followers don't get that, then they would know that it has to do with nature/flowers because of the 'sprout'. Also that the film has something to do with romance/love. 

The cryptic, teaser post.

62. Postcard (Front)

For the front of the postcard, I didn't want any information about the film itself or contact information, only the picture and director name. 

After thinking about the postcard, I decided to go with the darker route that's closer to what the film will look like. It also gives an idea on what the Hanahaki Disease is, slightly. 

The picture for the postcard.

The card itself is meant to be extremely dark and the red lettering of "Chrysanthemum" would pop out more and be more eye catching. I added a layer of light opacity over the picture of me to darken it along with the background. However, I wanted the flower and blood to pop out a little bit more, so I lightened the layer around those two items to be a little bit brighter. 

Version one of the postcard.

One thing I didn't like was the fact that the picture is cut off at the bottom, but I wanted the title to be at the bottom. I decided to look on how other postcards tackled that idea. 

This postcard uses an entirely different color to separate the character from the bottom. 

I tried to add some more greenery to the card, since there wasn't much and the flowers removed all the dead space around the character. The 'vines' don't completely remove the idea, but I do think it helps remove that little annoyance.  

The addition of the 'vines'.

To try to make the picture more seamless with the background, I erased the bottom of the picture to fit with the vines.

There was still so much dead space, so I added more flowers of a darker red to fill space. 

I wanted to have my name in the front somehow. I had different versions of the lettering in multiple places and colors, until I decided to put it right above the title and in a lighter green, that makes it still visible, but not as eye catching as the title

The version with the red lettering.

The version with the green lettering.

There wasn't much more to add, other than filling dead space, so decided to add leaves to the vines.

The stem of the flower was also a little bit off/showing the wire, so I decided to complete it off.

The finished postcard (front).

I absolutely love how it turned out. There's a cartoony feel, with the limited shading, but having the real photo gives a serious idea on what the film would turn out to be. So in some sense, I still have a postcard that fools the audience and get the dark themes as well. 

61. Editing Day 4

This session was replacing the clips I re-filmed and intercutting the book scene in between the bathroom shots. 

The book scene would start in the middle of the bathroom scene, when V drops the flower, to have a diegetic transition, so the only clips I could intercut was V washing her face and her calming down. This doesn't give much time to have the voice over of the definition, unless I read fast, or add time to the clips. I decided to remove a little bit of V looking through books, to move clips over and give me more time for the voice over. 

I showed a couple people the finished intercut section and they understood what was happening. That was mostly because of the clothes, the drastic environment change and the fact that the flower was now a petal with little blood now. 

There was another person who said that when I edit the audio for those scenes, I should have some audio differences as well, to really show the differences in time. I started thinking about having the past be quiet/no sound at all, because in the present, there will be music playing to represent V's heartbeat. It would also not be a faded out sound but instantly cut off from the other section. I'm hoping that gives a 'shock' to the audience, where they don't expect it and gain a new interest on what is going to happen. 

The intercut of the book scene is definitely my favorite. It has such a strong visual (and will have a different audio) contrast to everything else in the film. I went through different versions of the beginning of it, for the placement of the clips 

The first time seeing the intercut. V (past) picking the petal up in in between V (present) picking the flower up.

The same clip, without the intercut between V picking the petal up.

I was flipping between these two ideas for a while, before deciding to use the first version because it shows the comparison between the two times and how almost identical it is to the first time she discovers her disease.

After completing the entire section of the bathroom and book scene, I realized that V's emotions are opposite in the past and present. The past is V being confused to stressed (panicking when looking through the books) and the present is stressed to calm. There's not much meaning to this, but it's really interesting to see the difference in how V nw handles and hides her disease from others, since discovering it. 

60. Filming Day 7 (Filler Clips + Vase)

When looking through the footage, I noticed that there were areas that could use a smoother transition or there needed to be something in the spot. 

One shot I did, was for the point between LI leaving the side of the bed and V coughing. It was just LI walking off to the side of the room. 

Another was showing LI walking towards the bathroom in the hallway, to intercut during the beginning of the bathroom. This would show what LI is doing while V is in the bathroom and she isn't forgotten. It can also slightly draw out suspense because of how slowly she walks to the bathroom.

For the vase shots, I found a spot that has a raised place, but not much space behind it to move the camera back. This spot is also right next to the front door, which could be opened and shown the light entering and leaving. That gave a new visual that showed her entering the house (and then leaving at the end of the film). Now the shot shows her shoulders up and hair, rather than nothing at all. 

The new shot of LI walking, with the vase on a higher spot.

59. Filming Day 8

This filming day was to get the last shots I wanted to refilm, plus film the new scene of V looking for the Hanahaki Disease book. 

Re-filming the shots in the room and the bathroom weren't hard, because I knew exactly what I wanted to do and I could do it quickly. 

The issue was the shot of opening the door in the bathroom. Before, I had started with the inside of the bathroom being pitch black, but I wanted it to start lighter to match the time of the previous shots. However, I didn't account for turning the light on to mess with the lighting in film. I tired to have the auto lighting feature on and off', both looked terrible. 

An example of what turning the light on looked like in the bathroom scene. 

I decided that using the old take was better, since it didn't blind the viewers from how bright the light became. 

As for the flowers in the drawer, I believe that it is so much better than before. The whole drawer look fuller and it shows a how developed the disease has become, as well as, how many times V has coughed up flowers. The audience should have a better idea on how much this disease would affect a person's life (when hiding it from others) and how much V is struggling at that current moment. Plus, they would connect it with the information given in the book scene. 

Old version of the drawer.

New version of the drawer.

Something about the book scene just adds something, besides the definition, that was needed. Before I though it might give a fairytale feel, rather than the slice-of-life/modern idea I was going for. If I had more time, I would have decorated the scene a bit more to be old (with spider webs and dust) and florally (vines, weeds, or flowers growing around the area). 

For the actual filming, I wanted to get an angle to show the whole character and the drawer, along with having the camera so far back that gives the audience a spectator feel, leading to some suspense about what V is looking for. The tripod I had couldn't go that far, so I improvised with the extremely small tripod and placed some books underneath it. 

As for the filming process, I did everything in chronological order and added the books in one take, except for the last shot with the pile of books. The idea was to have V slowly look through books as she gets more stressed the longer it takes for her to find any information and having it in one take let me keep the same sitting position I was in and not accidently disturb anything. Not to mention, I could just split the clips when editing. 

I did have to remove the overhead shot of V looking into the drawer because there was a lot of things in there and I didn't want to move many things. It's a little sad that I couldn't do it but having V slowly remove books and having them pile around her gives a similar effect on both how hard and long she has been searching for. 

When looking at the shot with the piles of books around me, I noticed that the area was extremely dark and I didn't plan for that. I had moved the lighting circle to right where my head was and left it on auto by mistake. However, I feel that it isn't a bad mistake at all. Having the darkened shot shows how long V has been looking for any information, which is also similar to the swings scene, later in the film. One thing is that I might be a little too dark now and my expressions can barely be seen, but the struggled breathing might let the audience understand how stressed/irritated/sad V is.

The beginning of the book scene, with a much brighter light.

The end of the book scene with a much darker lighting.

Once V finds the book, I decided to angle it for a few reasons: to hide contents in the drawer, having the book be straight is extremely boring to look at and I couldn't physically get a shot with the book straight since there was no space in the area. 

58. Hanahaki Book

There were a few difficulties when trying to make the book look old and tattered. 

Coffee staining the book caused the covers to disintegrate, so I tried to tape them back, but you could see the tape and it didn't look old anymore, but rather broken. 

The book with the tape (red arrow), connecting the covers to the pages.

I decided to completely remove the covers and instead have it only be the pages of the book. 

When trying to burn the pages, it wouldn't burn with the wood burner tool and using fire went too fast for comfort. I didn't burn any pages. The book did lose a bit of its worn out feeling, but it has the definition and that's the most important thing. 

Since I couldn't burn the pages, I had the idea to have the pages be ripped and V slowly finds pages and connects them together. I feel if I had more time/footage to intercut with, this idea would work. The only issue would be how much time I had and I rather the bathroom scene not be stretched so much to the point that's what people most remember, due to how long it was.

The idea of the pages being ripped and V having to connect them back to get the definition.

The cover of the book is a regular flower encircling a pair of lungs, to give a visual on what happens to someone with the disease. If someone doesn't understand what was said in the voiceover, then they should understand the disease a little bit with the visual.

Version one of the cover page.

Version two of the cover page. A branch of flowers creating the silhouette of lungs. 

The third version of the cover. Two large flowers create the silhouette of lungs and the roots grow out of the mouth. 

The cover page (first version)

As for the definition, cures and causes, I tried to give as much information as I could without giving too much away. That gives the audience a relative idea on the disease, but not everything. The film will play out most of the idea.

For the 'font' of the words written, I wanted it to be more old/cursive/hard to read, but I didn't have the time to do it, plus if people wanted to read the book while it was on scene, that gave people a chance to understand what was written. 

After the information is given to the viewers, there is nothing else about the disease in the book; all the pages are blank. There isn't much more information about the disease itself, but V will quickly flip through the pages hoping for more information, which would lead the audience to believe there is more to the disease, but there is nothing more. 

The definition page in book.

The cures page of the page.

The extra information about the disease page. 

I debated on having the disease play out (having it kill V, but nothing was said about it in the book/that information was ripped out). Instead I thought about still being visual on screen for people to read, but not verbally said. If some people aren't paying attention/can't read that fast it would be a surprise to them, however, the information is still there leading to foreshadowing about what will happen to V. 

57. Diegetic Definition

"This is where the witches come out." - Mr. Aaronson

When reviewing the rough cut, Mr. Aaronson said that, and at the time it didn't mean anytime, until now. 

I didn't play too much into the fantasy/magic genre that my story had, so why not add it now! It would be a play on a typical magic book that a protagonist finds at the beginning of their journey and gives them all the information that they will need for their quest. Not exactly like that, but a magic/old book that holds the entire definition, cause and cures to the Hanahaki Disease. Adding this might give the audience a more fairytale fantasy genre, which I don't really want, but I'm willing to sacrifice a bit to get this definition in a more creative way. 

The scene itself would be V in a whole new outfit and location, indicating a different day/time, of the first time V got the Hanahaki Disease. 

The location would be a dark area, with a sliding drawer (because that movement looks really cool). I could also try to add fake spider webs to make it look extremely old and no one has been in it in a long time. 

The location for the scene; it is meant to be dark.

The sliding drawer movement.

V would be looking into an old-looking drawer with a hundred old books inside (shown using an overhead shot). Slowly she takes out books, looks through them and puts them to the side (this will show how many books there is in the drawer and how long/hard it is to find out what the disease is). Once V finds the right book, she will open and (verbally) read the definition, cures and causes to the audience, along with the close up of the pages in the book. 

Instead of having a chaotic bathroom scene, it would now intercut between this new scene and the bathroom. Most likely starting with the flower drop transition, to give the physical location transition I thought of when I made it. 

For the book itself, it would be similar to typical, magic looking books in fantasy genre medias. They have a brown/leather cover, yellowing/browning pages with many rips and tears, sometimes have bookmark ribbons, and may have metals or fancy looking drawings on the cover. 

Some stories have the books glow once they're opened, but I feel that would play way too much into the fairytale genre, plus I don't see how I could do that. 

My idea is to take a thin, white book and stain it with coffee to get the slight brown pages and I would probably have to paint the cover to be really brown. Then I'll burn the edges of the pages to look old or worn.

For the title cover of the book, I wouldn't put 'Hanahaki Disease' because V wouldn't know what that is. The options are to either have it say something with 'love, diseases, blood' etc. or to have it say nothing, to give a little more suspense (plus that could intercut again with the bathroom). 

One example of a fairytale book. 

Another example of a magical book, with a glowing light coming out of it.

56. Feedback from the Class

Overall, the class enjoyed the film, which I was extremely relieved about because I was worried that no one would understand what I made and the audience would be extremely confused. 

The main things I had to change was stuff in the bathroom (which I have to re-film anyway), making the definition diegetic and making the ending less awkward to watch. 

For the ending, I couldn't figure a way to incorporate a definition of the Hanahaki Disease anywhere, so I wrote it all out and stuck it in at the end. That did not go well with everyone! I thought that having it at the end would keep the audience in the dark for the entire film, but to put the definition in at coherent place, it would have to be somewhere in the middle. 

The class suggested some ideas, that unfortunately would not work because of the restrictions I set for my film, and they had no idea on it so it's not their fault, but using their ideas I came up other ideas. 

Autopsy report: The person suggested that at the end, after V dies, there is another character added who would give a verbal autopsy report.

Issues: The film is meant to be a story of just V and LI, so adding another character would break that whole idea completely. Now if I were to do a paper with the autopsy report, that means that would be (most likely) months after V has died. The way I would incorporate the paper would be the same time LI adds the flowers into the vase, which is right after V dies, so there's no way that paper would be available in a reasonable amount of time. Plus, the film has to end with the vase to tie it back in with the beginning. Logically, this can't be done.

The way I would incorporate the Autopsy report. The paper right next to the vase of flowers.

Computer (looking up the definition): This suggestion involved using a computer to look up what the disease was, specifically when V is in the bathroom and LI is still in the room, but it could be at any point.

Issues: I had purposely removed an old idea that involved using technology to ensure that the characters aren't focused on anything else, other than each other. There's also the fact that if it was done at that moment (LI in the room), it would not make any sense considering LI has the disease and would know what's happening. If it was V looking up the disease, again she knows what is happening and it would not make any sense.

The idea on how I would've put the characters looking up the definition for the disease. 

The other issue was the shots of LI walking in front of the vase. They stated that it was weird to watch considering all you see are her legs. I had positioned it like that to both show the vase in the middle and keep her identity a secret. I do agree with it being uncomfortable to watch and I will be re-filming it. Somewhere with a higher position to have it show her hair/ neck instead of somewhere lower. 

For the bathroom scene, I was told that it was too long and LI is just no where to be seen for a minute. An idea I thought of was showing LI slowly walking up to the door, so intercut through some shots of V in the bathroom. Just showing LI being a bit more concerned about V, other than just at the door.  

55. Social Media Post (Introduction)

For the first post of the account, I decided to have a small introduction of the company and have it give a little hint on the types of films they produce 'niche topics' and 'surprising twists'. 

Having an introduction can allow for the company to start gaining followers before anything about a film is posted. Plus, it ensures that people will know that this company is the official one, based on the date it was posted on. 

The picture is the logo of the company. It gives a closer view on the logo itself, allowing people to dissect every detail on it and to make their logo proudly known.  

The tweet of the introduction.

  

54. Social Media Profile

The profile for the social media task will be a Twitter account that focuses on being a company, rather than communicating individually with the audience. This means that the tweets would focus solely on the film itself. 

The name of the company is Clouded Films. 'Clouded' is meant to represent the clouded/confused mindset viewers would have while they watch the films, until the end once everything is revealed. 

Since there is a cloud theme with the name, the logo also follows that idea.

The logo for the company and Twitter account.

The cloud on top of the camera is a cumulus cloud. The symbolism for it is purity and hope, which would represent having hope and optimism for the company as a whole to continue and create films. It can also be an inspiration for the company to push through any hard times that may occur when filmmaking.

There are two symbols within the logo (cumulus and stratus) that also symbolize something.

The red circle is the stratus cloud symbol and the yellow circle is the cumulus symbol.

The stratus cloud symbolizes doom and despair. This isn't for the company, but rather the films that are produced by the company. There typically won't be many happy endings within the films created. 

The only thing that is 'shaded' in the logo is the cloud, which is 1/4 of the items in the logo, which is also equal to 2/8. The total amount of sky covered by clouds represents what type of weather it will be, so 1/4 (specifically 2/8) is scattered clouds. This represents the scattered information in the film, that little pieces of information will be given out to the viewers. 

For the Twitter account itself, I decided to make the banner the title of their upcoming film "Chrysanthemum" as a reminder whenever someone opens the account. The bio is stating that it is the official account for the company and a small detail that would draw viewers in, who want surprises in their films. 

The bio for the Twitter account.

The banner for the Twitter account.