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.