My Friend and I

My aims and context state that I was to create a short film drama with a clear
ideology, with some conventions of comedy, such as absurdity. The film should
appeal to young ABC1 cinephiles, aged 15-21 years old who are interested in
short films. My role for this short film was to edit and co-direct. I am also
responsible for some of the cinematography.
My Friend and I is about a teenager who develops an emotional attachment to a
spot on his face. The spot is an allegory for Bruces individuality or even
sexuality, that he is being rejected for being different. The spot explodes when
Bruce looks at himself in the mirror, suggesting that he rejects himself, he is
afraid to be different? Or that he is hiding from the truth, in denial of who he is.
The film ends on the resolution that the spot returns, through the perspective of
it representing Bruces differences or sexuality, is a representation of his resolve
to accept himself, regardless of how people might view him. The bathroom scene
was influenced by the early career of Scorsese, as there are uncomfortable
extreme close ups with graphic visuals designed to make the audience feel
deliberately disconcerted.
I collaborated with Ellen Boyton to make My Friend and I. We began
storyboarding and developing ideas about what we wanted our film to convey to
the audience. The narrative roughly follows Todorovs equilibrium, the inciting
incident occurs at the very start, when people at Bruces school were laughing at
him. A climax is created when Bruces family suggest he remove the spot, and it
explodes in the bathroom. The narrative reaches a resolution at the end when
Bruces spot reappears. Binary opposites are also in play, the short film explores
the theme of fitting in or standing out. Society and groups against individuals,
Bruce is the character who is repressed by societys ideals, and is isolated
because of his individuality. You could also interpret binary opposites of
repressed-self/ overt-self and extrovert vs introversion.
The most difficult task was attaching the CGI spot to the actors face. I used a
program called Mocha AE to motion track Bruces face effectively and save time
during editing, I drew tracking points onto the actors face so that it was easier to
track.

Once the motion had been tracked I

constructed a CGI spot in After Effects. The spot was composed of multiple
image layers, primarily of photographs of the prosthetic spot that Ellen had made
and some spots and zits from image searches. The prosthetic spot didnt work
since it didnt stick to the actors face. The data from Mocha AE allows the CGI
spot to stick to the face. I had to paint in the skin around the spot so that the
track points were concealed. I also considered the lighting and skin tone for each

shot, so that the spot could look as realistic as I could manage. In some cases I
feel I did a poor job of the CGI, for example the first shot where the spot is
revealed, tracking was very difficult as the shot was poorly lit, and so the spot
came out bad.
In some cases I created a parallax effect within the spot. This is built up of layers
of veins underneath the spot that move at different speeds to the spot. If done
right this adds a lot of depth to the spot, and looks as if there are veins and fluid
moving beneath the surface. Due to deadlines I did not have time to do this to
every shot. I spent around one hour on each shot, or just half an hour if I was
lucky enough to have a very simple shot.
The bathroom scene went well, the spot explosion usually retrieves a cringe
reaction from the viewer every time Ive shown My Friend and I to someone. The
sound effect for the explosion was created from a squelch that I recorded using
an old ketchup bottle to squirt water. I combined this with the sound that was
captured from the footage, I blew salad cream through a tube aimed at the
mirror. The depth of field shots were also very impressive, for example the shot
of the piano keys with Bruce reading his diary in the background encourages the
audience to reflect on the events prior. At times the spot looked very realistic,
often it took a second watching before viewers noticed it was CGI.
In future I would ensure that the shots had adequate lighting, and draw more
distinct tracking points. This would make editing easier and save a lot of time,
and therefore I would be able to build more into the spot to make it look more
realistic. Id shoot more takes to improve the quality of acting performance,
which would raise the finished image of the film a little more. I might also
consider different methods of creating the spot, such as creating a 3d model in
Maya and tracking the actors head in 3d software. I could also use a prosthetic
spot and find a better glue medium to stick it to the characters properly.
Overall, I met my aims and objectives and am generally happy with the final
outcome and have received very favourable feedback on the short film.