For my short film self-portrait, I wanted to create a dreamlike representation of myself and my reality. I believe the subconscious and dreams to be fundamental to a person; how they live, who they are, what they desire. I understand dreams to principally be about the dreamer, so I decided that a dream sequence would be a great way for me to create a self-portrait.
I have always loved dream sequences, my favourite one being the Black Lodge scenes in the television show Twin Peaks. I love how they can be interpreted in many different ways (just like dreams can) because of their use of symbols, metaphors and motifs. In my self-portrait, I contrast spoken word, which is in fact prose inspired by entries in my dream journal, with video and still images, in an abstract way that portrays my own sense of self. My dream sequence, like many others, contain many images that don’t seem to be related, but I used a track of music to try to tie everything together. I am particularly proud of my soundtrack because I think that it conveys the surreal yet familiar feeling I was looking to achieve.
Inspired by Twin Peaks, I reverse many of the videos. I did this to show how I reflect on my dreams and play them back in my head in order to get a sense of their meaning. I also use repetition to illustrate this idea. I feel that, because it is a dream sequence, some of my intentions and reasons for including particular footage may be lost on the audience. I opened the piece with a male voice calling my name and a reverse shot of a man walking through a rose garden. This is my partner who is a large part of my life and who often frequents my dreams. I am not sure whether this shot fits in well with all the other footage as it is so different in tone, but I edited the colours and reversed the shot so that it had similar elements as the other shots.
