Main themes: Nostalgia, elements of grief, longing, desire, ect

Initial Plans involved more heavily around grief and loss (changed later on to be about memories and nostalgia)

Recurring Visual of nature throughout (also played a role in the film itself)

Sony FS7 (Camera)

Samyang Lens Kit (came with camera)

Tripod (came with camera)

Zoom F4 (Soundkit)

Clapperboard and Pens

Boyhood (2014), dir. Richard Linklater; overall look and aesthetic, as well as jumpy timeline of events (film does the reverse of sorts by going backwards in time, as opposed ti forwards)

Wes Anderson Films (overall aesthetic and framing)

Little Miss Sunshine (2006), dir. Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris; contrasting a bright aesthetic with a bleaker story

Persona 3 Reload OP (2024), Full Moon, Full Life; a sharp and bright aesthetic contrasting the darker and more depressing aspects of the games story

Erased (2026); mild influence over the story

While we use a lot of conventional lens tricks throughout the film, there is a common theme of extreme wide shots being used whenever our protagonist is back in the real world/not reminiscing, with the 14mm really helping to make it seems like she's just another part of this world, that what she's experiencing is ultimately not going to affect anyone but herself, such as with the opening shot (page 2).

Additionally, we utilised a lot of soft focus shifts whenever a key moment in the film occurred, such as when our protagonist found the radio and headphones in the second dream sequence (page 3), the cut to a flashback sequence showing how the CD came to be (page 4).

In terms of positioning, we utilised a lot of handheld tracking and other the shoulder shots, mainly to further focus on our main protagonist, and to further cement the camera as her perspective. A couple notable examples are the second shot of Scene 1 (page 5) for the handheld tracking shots, or the close ups whilst our protagonist makes their CD in the flashback during Scene 3 (page 6) and the rediscovery of the CD in Scene 4 (page 7)

Major change 1: In the initial drafts of the story, our Protagonist was instead supposed to go on a trip both back and forwards within their memories, with each stanza relating to a different period of their life (1st = Present; 2nd = Past; 3rd = Future; 4th = Enlightened Present). However, difficulties arose in trying to portray how the future could look distinct without treading back on the aesthetic we planned to utilise for the Past.

Thus, we ultimately decided to change the plot slightly so that it was instead a series of dream sequences and flashbacks to our Protagonist's life, and how they came to find their happiness in life.

Major Change 2: The ending was originally supposed to be our Protagonist walking off with the CD, but was changed to include the scene where our Protagonist instead goes home to listen to the CD.

As neither of us are proficient in editing, we decided on doing a simple cut in AVID, which we also used for the sound cut and later colour grading.

In regards to the colour grade, we wanted to have a slightly surreal look to half the film, and a more toned down and neutral look for the other half. The scenes set in the present utilise a cooler/greyer colour grade, to fully emphasise the monotony our protagonist is feeling.

However, the dream and flashback sequences utilise a more absurd colour scheme, with the dream sequences having a more dreamy colour scheme (mainly pale pinks and light blues, almost a bit rose tinted), and the flashbacks having a bolder colour scheme (greenish yellows and bolder pinks, and almost seem more unnatural than the dream sequences).