See-Bastian: When Students Are Given Creative Freedom

Recently, our film class had a group project where we got with other students to make a 2-5 minute short film. At first, many of us were concerned about how the heck we were gonna make a movie, with what camera, storyline, equipment, music, editing, and quite literally everything. 

But as my group started to plan out our film, we found that like many of the other groups, the creative juices just kept flowing. Not only were we able to figure out what our plot was going to be, but we were also able to visualize what scenes we wanted to film. The next thing we know, we were all looking forward to making a film. 

Now, would our film, "See-Bastian" have make it to the Oscar's? No, but it made it to my blog, which is basically the equivalent, if not better. In this post, I'm going to share some of my favorite parts of our short film, as well as some behind-the-scenes choices we made that I think really impacted the finished product. 

Synopsis

During a normal day of school, Sebastian meets a new friend, Rose, at the cafe. They befriend one another and spend the rest of the day together, studying, talking, and walking around campus. 

While leaving a building, Sebastian and Rose bump into a friend, Alexa. Sebastian asks Alexa to take a photo of him and Rose together in front of the building, to which she gladly does. After Alexa takes the photo on Sebastian's phone, her expression immediately changes to a look of concern. She returns Sebastian's phone to him and immediately leaves, wanting to get as far away from him as possible. Looking at the photo, Sebastian is in shock as he sees that he is the only person pictured, with Rose nowhere in the photo. After the confusion of Rose not being pictured, Sebastian flashes back to all the moments he was with her and realizes no one was ever there. The film ends back at the cafe, where Sebastian is seen talking to no one, but himself. 

Making the Plot and Assigning Jobs

The hardest thing about this assignment was brainstorming what the plot would be. There were so many possibilities about what our films could be about, we were all stuck on how to narrow down on an idea. One thing we did know was that our genre would be suspense, because every group at least had a genre to work off of. Eventually, one of our group members, Julia, suggested that we make our film centered around a plot twist where one of the characters is revealed to have never existed at all. We all thought it'd be a great challenge to execute an unexpected twist like that, so we all built upon that idea. 

Now that we had something to build upon, the next step was figuring out what the actual plot would be in order to get to the plot twist of a nonexistent character. At first, we thought it'd be interesting to do something in a business setting like a meeting, or maybe even giving our main character a lover who turned out to be a manifestation of their desire for love (cruel, I know). But one thing we kept in mind while brainstorming was our audience: our film class. So we decided to set our film in our very own college campus and have our protagonists simply be students who already go to our school. 

At this point, we were able to fully assign roles to everyone. Julia was already our screenplay writer, Sebastian, Bug and I would be the actors, and the glue that would put everything together: Brianna, our director and editor. As important everyone's contribution was, Brianna specifically dedicated so much of her creativity and vision into our film. While we were filming, she knew exactly what the shot wanted to look like, how she was going to execute it, and communicated it to the rest of us so we could help her execute her vision. In my eyes, she's the Stephen Spielberg to our Jaws. 

Filming: Focusing and the New iPhone

Surprisingly, the first thing we filmed was Sebastian's reaction to seeing that Rose was not real. This was mainly due to the fact that Bug (who played Rose) was not present this day, so we decided to film the scenes where Sebastian would be by himself. Filming these scenes actually turned out to be very helpful later on because the next time we filmed, we already knew what shots we needed to get with Bug as the scenes are essentially the same, only Sebastian is interacting with Rose, who we think is real. This made our filming process a lot more simpler and efficient as we only needed about two hours over the span of two days shooting for our entire film. 

Not only did Bri have such a clear idea for the film, but she also had the newest iPhone which conveniently had a cinematic mode for taking videos and literally made everything clear. It was also easy to manipulate the focus in certain shots, which Bri did a lot while filming. Thank you Steve Jobs.

 

Bri first started filming with an over-the-shoulder shot behind Sebastian, then moved into the phone Sebastian was holding and focused onto the picture where Rose is nowhere to be seen. Bri, being the visionary master she is, instructed Sebastian to just zoom in on the photo. But what I absolutely loved about this scene and its filming process was how Bri used her camera. Filming from an over-the-shoulder shot helps put the audience in Sebastian's point of view. As she zooms into the phone, the audience is also coming to the realization that Rose was not real, just like Sebastian is. 

And probably what is the most iconic scene from this film, Sebastian looks up in horror at the realization that his friend had never existed. Bri first started this shot at the phone in Sebastian's hands, then panned up to his face where Sebastian gave his best acting performance of his short-lived career. 

This scene provided so much to our film because not only is it the climactic plot twist, but it also puts us face-to-face with Sebastian for the first time. Up to this point, the entire film has been from a third person's point-of-view where the audience is just watching Sebastian and Rose hang out together. Now, we finally get to be in Sebastian's point of view and probably at the point of the film where it matters most. It is such a switch from the beginning portion of the film and definitely my favorite part of the behind-the-scenes. 

Editing: Sequencing For a Full Circle 

One thing I learned in a public speaking course that has stuck with me is the primacy and recency effect, which suggests that things in the beginning and at the end are most remembered. Knowing this, our instructor would always tell us to recall to the opening of our speech when we were closing, because this helps the audience to not only remember what you're talking about, but to also connect your entire speech together as a whole. I think this can definitely apply to films as well, because it is a common technique to recall a detail from the beginning of the movie, especially if that detail reveals to hold significance in the ending, which ours did. This technique helps the audience to connect moments from the beginning and end of films and provides cohesiveness for details throughout the movie.

Scenes Prior to Plot Twist:

Scenes After Plot Twist:

The pictures above are from shots that compare the beginning and end of the film. In the top three pictures, both Sebastian and Rose are seen as this is what Sebastian and the audience think are reality before the plot twist. The bottom three pictures are from scenes that happen after the plot twist, which is why only Sebastian is in the frame.

Looking at the shots taken from the scenes, the sequence they appear above are how they are sequenced in the film. As you can see, the order is inverted, with the film starting and ending at the same place, back at the cafe. I remember during filming that Bri wanted to edit the film this way and immediately loved the idea. To recall back to the opening of the film, we are again put into Sebastian's point-of-view as he's coming to the realization that Rose does not exist. The audience also comes to the realization that what they were watching from the beginning of the film was a complete and utter lie, which always brings a feeling of betrayal, but one everyone eventually learns to appreciate, because it's cinema. 

I also like that the film closes this way because it leaves off on an ambiguous ending. I know leaving film endings to the viewers' imagination is probably a cop out of resolving the film, but I honestly like that. Not only can the viewers be directors themselves, but it also allows different interpretations to be discussed amongst the movie watching community, which is always fun to learn about.

Conclusion

In the end, our group ended up having a lot of fun making this film. Being able to actually learn about filmmaking first hand rather than by a textbook was way more educational and entertaining (sorry Sharman). Furthermore, having the ability to let your creativity run wild and make something out of absolutely anything is one of the most liberating things a student can probably have. Of course, there isn't going to be an Oscar-award winning film that comes out of student film projects, but boy can they be humble beginnings and meaningful experiences.