This film project has changed me as a person in ways I would have never imagined. It has been by far the most stressful thing I have ever done my full life, yet I know a few years down the line I am going to forget the inconveniences and ultimately miss this experience of creating a feature-length film. The story is my story, and I am both excited and terrified to share it with the world. It will require courage but I know if I do it, it will have an impact. Even if I do not see the impact, I believe in the butterfly effect, and I know that it has immense potential to do good to this world. I am happy I have done my best to document the full process because I know there is value in that as well, not just for myself but for other indie filmmakers.
I feel ashamed of my behavior the past two years as well as my full life. Even as I type this out right now, I feel as if I am only motivated by self-gain, and that is greedy, egotistical, and also the reason I even experienced forms of anxiety and depression. I am practicing to let go of my pride. The thing I am trying to figure out now is, am I practicing altruism just for myself? just so I can alleviate my problems and feel good inside? Do I not genuinely care about those around me? Isn’t that also selfish? Does everybody on this earth only act through self-motives? If so, aren’t there people who are more selfish and other people who are more kind? I still have to give it a lot more thought. Well, maybe it is a biological nature for creatures to act with self-motive in mind, but that doesn’t change the fact that we have a choice, we can choose good over bad.
Of course, there were many things I could have improved on when I look back at the filming process. I was obsessed with getting the perfect take. I didn’t give the actors any freedom to say the lines, I wanted them to say it exactly how it sounded like in my head, I couldn’t let go of my vision. As I edit the project now, I realized that I actually like it more when the actors improvise it because it feels more natural. I have to learn to not be so stubborn. As the director of my favorite TV Show (Breaking Bad) puts it:
In the film, the main character eventually overcomes his anxiety and practices meditation. Similar to my real life. I have been challenging myself and exploring spirituality these past few months, and I have learned some very interesting things about the world and how I am able to interact with it. Something I have discovered recently is, perhaps this world is filled with vibrations, and our thoughts and energy have an impact on it. It is something I aim to explore for the rest of my life, and I owe this film project to be the reason that initiated this search.
The process of making this film has been very rocky. There were many moments my friends wanted to quit, including myself. But at the end of the day, we went through with it. Originally, I wanted to have all the filming done for the project by December 2020. After I realized that wasn’t enough time, I aimed for Summer 2021. We actually managed to complete all the major shoots by summer 2021 which was a very accomplishing feeling. Similar to the feeling I experienced once I finally figured out the ending of the story after months of contemplating and rewriting. Once it all clicked together it was beyond satisfying. Nevertheless, after completing all the major shoots, I took time off the project and focused on school once grade 12 began. Then I got back into working on it as there were still several minor shoots and other work to be done regarding this project. I can confidently say that I have finished all major and minor shoots for the entire project. It feels really great to be able to say that. There were some moments I really didn’t think I would make it to this point. This is something I wrote down in December 2020.
I remember I had a breakdown during that holiday. I had just done one intense shoot and had only one day to prepare the props, location, write the script and organize my friends to come for another massive shoot the day after. I’m grateful for my parents who brought me out of it and got me back on track, otherwise, I might have given up. It’s sad because throughout the full process I was so obsessed with myself, the only thing that mattered was my film project and I often stepped over other people’s feelings to get what I want. I only came to realise this during the start of grade 12 after I talked to one of my friends about their perspective towards helping others, and I took a while to reflect on my life and who I am as a person and if its the kind of person I want to be.
Other points of reflection:
I needed a bigger crew to alleviate the stress of my shoulders. Just the little things like taking too much time on a single shot, organizing what shots to get next, and providing food for the cast, these minor inconveniences add up and really harmed my headspace which impacted my ability to direct/act effectively.
Originally, I intended this project to be a TV series consisting of short 2-10 minute long videos uploaded to YouTube. We stuck with that, but I also thought it would be nice to keep it all into one big movie, just to simplify the presentation of the project in the future. It wasn’t as easy as just piling the separate videos into one long video though, in fact, I had to film extra scenes, adjust some existing scenes and remove some unnecessary scenes in order to make all flow well as a feature film.
What now?
Currently, it is March 2022. My final IB exams are coming up in two months. I wanted to have this project done and published before the exams, but it seems that is not going to be the case. The final stage is the editing process. Its a lot less stressful because I don’t have to worry about others or external factors, but at the same time, it is painful and tedious. All of the flaws that we overlooked in every shot suddenly stand out. “If only we had just done/got this then it would have been perfect!” It’s hard to control the urge to reshoot stuff. But I am learning to let go and not be stubborn. My current plan is to put this project to the side and put all of my attention into schoolwork. I just had my mock exams and I performed very poorly, so I need to make sure my grades go up, then afterwards I can continue my work. There is an external time pressure that exists for this project, I gave myself the deadline to release it once the next major update for the platformer game Geometry Dash releases. That way I could capitlise off the event and gain a large viewership for my work. The blessing/curse is that I do not know when the update would be released, and the developer is notorious for taking years to release updates. Substantial evidence has gathered across the past two years that the update will inevitably come out, it just comes down to a matter of when he finishes it. I just have to hope it does not come out within the next few months, otherwise my project won’t be ready and I would have missed the opportunity. But there is no point worrying too much about it as it is out of my control. For now, it is best I just focus on what I can control.
I created this edting timeline for me to stay on track with editing everything. Although I made it very organised, unfortunately, I couldn’t stick to it. I guess I still don’t know how to effectively manage my time and balance between homework, work, and life.
After having a general understanding of the story, we got to filming. We managed to find a nice location in the art block in school for the first scene in the entire film.
Initially, we filmed the project chronologically, however, once the story expanded beyond what we anticipated, we started organizing our shoots based on every scene one specific character acts in so that we can cross of actors who we don’t need anymore. We could only do this however once we understood how the film would end, which I couldn’t figure out until the middle of the production.
Most of our shoots were extremely stressful because we only had a film crew of two people, which is really quite impractical on a film set. We got tired quickly from doing all of the setup/heavy liftings ourselves. I experienced high levels of anxiety before each shoot day trying to factor in the endless possibilities of things that could go wrong.
What made it worse was I was the main actor for most of the shoots, so I didn’t really have a director to tell me what to do or change about my performance since I was also the director. This resulted in lots of time being wasted on me going through each shot after every take to see if I was happy with the results. I was required to swap in and out of character every few moments. There was a constant conflict between me wanting to get a better take against my tired friends who wanted to move on and get everything else done so they could go home. All of this combined with the constant time pressure: not having access to the location forever… the sun slowly going down causing changes in lighting… cast getting tired of having to go home… etc. To put it simply, almost every shoot day was torturous.
Some shots were poorly organized and planned, so we had to redo them. Throughout the full two years of the IB experience, this film project has almost always been at the back of my mind. It infiltrated every aspect of my life, I would constantly be seeking inspiration, sometimes unconsciously. There was constant doubt. Is it even worth telling this story? Eventually, it transformed from a passion project to something I dreaded having to do. I felt trapped by it. I gave myself such high expectations to make an incredible piece of art that it drove me kind of insane.
Our first and foremost goal is to tell a story that engages the viewer. The film should immerse the viewer into the world of the main character. His wants should be clearly established in the beginning, and some conflict should arise to create tension and suspense. I take Higher Level Film as a class in IB, and that exposure has equipped me with useful knowledge for producing a movie. I also have made many short films in the past, so I am familiar with the basics such as how cameras work and how to navigate an editing program. On top of this, I also wanted to help others to combat anxiety and publicize my music.
What needs to be done?
WRITING
The writing process was probably the most challenging aspect of this full film because I have the tendency to strive for perfection on the first draft. I spent time watching videos on YouTube for how to structure the story and what elements make a good story vs a bad story. I pitched the movie idea to my good friend Shaurya who became a co-producer and co-writer for this entire project. We both have several free blocks together and we spent that time trying to outline the story. There were many arguments and misunderstandings. I spent countless hours contemplating each scene and the overall flow of the story. Very often I got confused and doubted myself and scrapped/redid portions of the work. It was very stressful as the story expanded much larger than we originally presumed, so we essentially wrote the story while filming it.
(planning)
(plot outline)
(scriptwriting)
I wanted to ensure that my story was authentic and beneficial to people that watch it. I did lots of research and talked to many different types of people about anxiety and implemented those ideas in the story.
(debating with a friend about what is being portrayed in the film: I was worried that we were giving off the message that you should give up fighting your anxiety when I was trying to say you should embrace it)
(1-hour discussion with licenced councilor about my movie, what we are portraying and how the story should end)
SCHEDULE + GOALS
To make sure we actually get work done and stay on track, I created a schedule with deadlines for us to stick to. I also set ourselves goals to give us a sense of accomplishment by achieving them. The problem is we underestimated the work it would require.
(schedule)
(goals)
EQUIPMENT
Before I only filmed on my phone and I wanted to step up the production value of this film to increase the level of immersion. I did lots of research on a new DSLR camera, as well as a lense, shotgun/lav microphones, lights, gimbal, tripod, etc. The equipment cost around $3330.00 SGD, mostly financed by the earnings on my YouTube Channel.
ACTORS
Actors are another crucial aspect of an engaging film, however, I was only a seventeen-year-old high school student and did not know where to find or afford professional actors. I already knew I was going to be the main actor for my film, which saves some stress, although I have no acting experience so that took some practice to get the hang of. For everyone else, I asked my friends at school and chose whoever I felt looked right for the role. To be efficient, I wrote the characters in my script based on the people I knew who are going to act in my film, including my mother, brother, and teachers. My friends were often busy with homework and exams which was a major obstacle in the production.
LOCATIONS
No matter how good the cinematography is, you need a good location to reach that next level of visual storytelling. However, finding a great location that you can film in is challenging, especially in such a tiny city as Singapore. Locations were often too unfeasible to travel to with all the equipment, had lots of people and were too noisy to film in, or were banned to film in and required a permit. This is why I made most of the places I had access to, such as my house. Almost every single room of my house was used in the film, we even redesigned areas to look like other locations such as another person’s house, a therapy room, and a jail cell.
SHOT LISTS
To ensure efficiency, I also created a shot list before every shoot to know what I need to get done on set. This was very useful as it was stressful directing as well as acting in the same film.
The movie is essentially about a teenage boy’s journey in overcoming his anxiety and depression. The story follows ‘Razing’, a social media influencer desperately clinging onto the remains of what was once a popular and loved YouTube gaming channel. His channel gets hacked and stolen by a deranged fan who drives Razing to a path of exhaustion and agony. Throughout Razing’s journey to get his channel back and balance his life, he realizes the fan was trying to help him all along.
Why Did I Create This Film?
There were many factors that influenced me to create this film. One of the main goals I had when imagining this film was to create an authentic and realistic portrayal of an individual suffering from mental illness. This movie was greatly inspired by my real life and the problems I have faced dealing with anxiety and depression. I feel that because I chose to be vulnerable and share my truthful experience in overcoming these issues, viewers in similar shoes also trying to get better would greatly benefit from watching the movie.
Context: What Events Inspired My Film?
1. Youtube Channel
The work began in August 2020. Initially, the main reason why I wanted to make this film was to attempt to regain popularity for my YouTube Channel named ‘razing717’. The channel currently has over 150,000 subscribers and in it, I mainly make gaming videos about the platformer video game called ‘Geometry Dash’. This channel has always been something I have been proud to own, and I associate it with a core part of my identity. The thing is, though, its popularity peaked somewhere in the year 2017, and after that, the rate at which my channel grew steadily declined ever since. This may have been due to a multitude of factors, such as not being able to manage uploading videos with school work, but in my opinion, the main cause for my channel losing its popularity is due to me losing interest in the game ‘Geometry Dash’, the game that got my channel popular in the first place.
I remembered I tried branching out the kind of content I created for many years, playing other types of games, making short comedy skits, and even recording rap songs, and while I really enjoyed doing this other stuff, for the most part, the majority of my audience had no interest in it and instead were inclined towards my ‘Geometry Dash’ content. I was encouraged by whatever got more views, and my other content felt abandoned which was demotivating, so I thought I would continue making ‘Geometry Dash’ videos to maintain my channel’s growth, even though I did not really enjoy the game that much.
(video I created summarising my stance towards the state of the game and how I was getting bored of it)
In the above video, I was attempting to come to a consensus with my fanbase, getting them to understand why I didn’t upload ‘Geometry Dash’ videos as frequently, and why I uploaded other kinds of content, even though they only wanted to see ‘Geometry Dash’. Fortunately for me, I had a really strong core fanbase who were supportive of whatever content I created, and this video generally had a positive reception which made me feel more hopeful for the future of my channel.
(comments from the video)
However, while I did have a strong core fanbase, they only made up a small fraction of my total subscriber count. I found that the videos about ‘Geometry Dash’ averaged 392 thousand views as compared to the 17 thousand average views of the videos unrelated to the game. While I may have tried to ignore the numbers at first, I couldn’t hide the fact that it was killing my motivation to branch out into other content. Another factor that came into play was my persona, more specifically my voice. Part of what made my old videos funny and likable was my squeaky voice. As I grew up, my voice naturally deepened, so many viewers lost interest and didn’t find the new version of me as fun to watch.
(comments throughout my channel across the years)
It was discouraging spending hours editing a video just to read these kinds of comments. I think I was sensitive to people’s opinions because I lacked the self-respect to create my own path. The rate of my uploads was on a slow decline, alongside my viewership and motivation. I felt pressured to stick to playing the same game until I got burnt out and wanted to quit, which was unfortunate because having this platform was important to me. Luckily, I wasn’t ready to give up just yet, I had one more ambitious idea which would be my final attempt to revive my channel.
I’ve always loved creating films, and I knew that Geometry Dash would be the perfect thing to attract viewers back to my channel, so with that mindset I started writing a plot outline. It went something along the lines of a fan who steals my channel and forces me to play every single Geometry Dash level again. In my head, I was thinking this would be a great way to get many views, as all of my old videos on these levels were very popular. Furthermore, as I got bored of Geometry Dash, my passion for making songs increasingly grew throughout the years. Eventually, I created a new YouTube Channel in 2020, and all of my attention moved from my gaming channel to my music channel. I wanted to develop a new fanbase for my music but I found it to be quite challenging, so I saw this as a good opportunity for that.
2. Anxiety
Another major factor that formed the basis of the story was the anxiety I experienced, throughout my full life but primarily in recent years throughout the duration of the pandemic. I experienced feelings of anxiousness in social situations and public speaking events which occasionally resulted in panic attacks, I had a negative attitude towards myself resulting in insecurity. I also found it hard to enjoy activities without thinking of work as I was constantly paying attention to the time passing by. This also applied to the grand scheme of things where I was extremely fearful of growing up and death (like most people are). Eventually, after talking to some doctors they brought up the term Generalised Anxiety Disorder and offered two different types of medicine courses. My parents were reluctant to take either of them and even I slightly was, due to the potential side effects they had. The doctor mentioned how starting the medicine may cause the anxiety to get worse before getting better, and in some patients, they experienced suicidal thoughts. I decided to not start the courses however I took a pill for panic attacks which prevent the heart rate from exceeding a certain point.
I have always been friends with this emotion and our relationship has been quite rocky. I always looked at it as the enemy but after lots of research and work (mostly done because of the film), I realized it was only trying to help me. It has been an extremely challenging process with many fluctuations in growth, and I still am grappling with many aspects of it, but I understand my brain better and am better equipped to deal with the problems I used to experience quite often. One of the key takeaways is to be selfless and practice altruism. I realized I have always been quite dependent on others throughout my life and I put a lot of attention on myself and my own problems/feelings, which caused them to appear worse than they actually are. Now, I am trying to be more present in the moment and direct my attention to the people around me, offering to help them, which ironically helps me. It is still something I have a lot of room to improve on, and I don’t think I will ever stop this journey of introspection and growth until I die.
LO2- Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process.
At the end of my volleyball experience, I observed that I have greatly improved my overall ability as a volleyball player. From starting out as an inexperienced player, no match for some of my student friends, to becoming more confident in my ability and holding my weight in some of the more intense games, I was very proud that in my IB course, I managed to pick up a new skill of playing this sport, learning how it works, the correct techniques and strategies, and went through with it instead of giving up. Throughout the process I encountered many challenges, for example, I found it very hard learning how to serve effectively and consistently. But from doing many drills and practices over and over, I finally managed to get the hang of it, which was both gratifying and rewarding. There were times when I lost interest and felt demotivated, whether that may have been to studies, an intense/pressured playing atmosphere. One really useful skill I learned was being a better leader in my team, because there were times that I would blame my teammates for not playing properly and jeopardizing our games, however, I realized that a more gentle approach would overall be more beneficial and increase our chances of winning the game.
LO5-Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively.
LO7-Recognise and consider the ethical implications of choices and actions.
In the middle of our volleyball activity, I quickly realized that similar to ultimate frisbee, this sport relied heavily on our ability to work collaboratively, and this was due to the simple rule that before passing the volleyball to the other side of the net, it must be passed to 3 other teammates apart of your team. I joined this activity with a few of my friends and we would usually team up together because there was that level of comfort that comes with being friends, we wouldn’t be afraid to express our feelings of disappointment and frustration when one of us messes up the pass or fails to obtain the ball. While initially, I didn’t really see a problem with this, I noticed that over time it created this sense of competitiveness and toxicity within our own team, which ended up being more damaging than beneficial in terms of winning games. Sometimes, we would waste time blaming each other when we lose a point, rather than focusing on ways to improve our strategy and utilize each of our specific strengths and weakness to our advantage. There were moments were I felt culprit to this, blaming my teammates and expressing my frustration, but after some evaluation, I realized that because I was so focused on winning the game, I may have actually lowered the morale of some of my teammates by being rude which ironically may have lowered our overall chances in winning the game. I think that it’s important to keep the spirits alive especially in a team game, not only to motivate each player but also so that people don’t feel upset and pressure on the inside, impacting the overall enjoyment of the sport and making the full atmosphere less enjoyable.
LO4-Show commitment and perseverance in CAS experiences.
At the beginning of the volleyball activity, I found that I was very inexperienced with the skillsets required to be successful at the game, especially relative to some of the other players who signed up alongside me. We began doing basic drills with partners, learning how to serve, smash, spike, bump etc. all essential skills to play the sport yet extremely precise to master, yet I found that I had a strong lack of coordination and was probably the worst player out there. My spikes were badly timed, I had a very awkward and incorrect form, the volleyball always ended up being not where I wanted it to be. However, I didn’t let this stop me, I was dedicated to overcoming this problem and learning how to play this sport properly. I had very limited experience with this sport in the past, playing volleyball had been something that I’ve been wanting to get to from a young age however could never find the time or the right opportunity to do so until now. I decided to ask our teacher for some personal help out of class, asked her to give me some advice on my form and how I can improve my ability to perform well in this sport. After practicing some drills for a bit, a few classes later I had noticed I had significantly improved. In my own time, I watched games of people playing volleyball which allowed me to get a stronger grasp of how the sport works and what are some techniques professional players use. I also watched this video on how to properly serve in volleyball, which was extremely helpful for me and I noticed a significant improvement in my ability as soon as I tried out the knowledge that I learned. Overall, I was happy that I didn’t give up early on and I kept through, despite the pressure of being probably one of the worst players in court due to have no experience in this sport.
Something that I really enjoyed during ultimate frisbee was the teamwork associated with it. Basically how the game works is that you have two teams, for us specifically, each of them was comprised of around 3 players (due to a lack of overall players as well as covid measuring rules). Each team has the goal to get the frisbee to the other side. But the thing is that you cannot run with the frisbee, so this is where the teamwork aspect comes in. The only way to move forward is to pass the frisbee to your teammates, so this game inherently has a reliance on your teammates which forces effective collaboration if you want to succeed. I find there is a problem with some sports I play, such as football, basketball, where I occasionally come across the ‘solo player’ who likes to do the majority of the work themselves out of fear that their teammates will mess the game up for them. Meanwhile, once I thought about it, ultimate frisbee completely eradicates this phenomenon, which may be daunting for some players who rely on others to do most of the heavy lifting. What I noticed that happened eventually as a result of this rule was my team and other teams started devising strategies together, actually communicating. For example, there was an instance where I and my team developed a strategy for one of us to run all the way to the far end meanwhile the other two players slowly passed the frisbee within close proximity of each other to make consistent progress, until the right moment where once the opposing team started coming forward we would pass it over all of them to our ‘secret weapon’ waiting in the right position for the frisbee in order to score and take the lead. Overall, it was quite enjoyable working collaboratively as a team to win the games and made you feel like you were an important part of the process which personally I found to be gratifying.
LO5-Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively.
During our sessions at MINDS Tampines, we would often host activities such as drawing and dancing to keep our clients entertained, however, I found that it was sometimes difficult to do the job on my own. Sometimes we would split off into our own groups and have one on one discussions with them, and I felt that at times my partners did not want to interact with me, perhaps due to their lack of social experience which made them feel uncomfortable. This made it hard to do activities with them and because they were uncomfortable it defeated our overall purpose which was to make them feel happy. What I decided to do was partner up with some friends and play games together. I found that doing this alleviated some of the pressure to interact with each other and allowed us to focus on the activity, which minimized the uncomfortable atmosphere and overall everybody had a better time. This is why I realized that sometimes it is better to do things with others and the more people involved with something, the better it might be.
(comments from the video)
