Getting Started with the Vanessa Project
Okay, so I decided to finally do something with this idea I had rolling around in my head after reading that book, “My Dark Vanessa”. It wasn’t like I wanted to make a full movie, nothing like that. Just needed to get some images out, you know? The feeling of it stuck with me, the heavy, complicated stuff. So I thought, right, let’s try and make a short film thing. Just for myself, really. A way to process it.
Figuring Out the Vibe
First thing, I didn’t write a script. No way. Too much structure. I just scribbled down some key scenes, or more like feelings I wanted to capture. Lots of shadows, definitely. Isolated shots. Hands doing things, maybe reaching or twisting fabric. Stuff that felt… uncomfortable. I wanted that ‘dark’ feel, not just in the lighting but in the whole mood. Finding the right mood was everything. I walked around my apartment, looking at corners, how light fell at certain times of day. That became my location scouting, pretty basic stuff.
The Actual Filming Bit
So I grabbed my old phone. Nothing fancy. The camera’s decent enough if you know how to handle the light. Or lack of it, in this case. I spent a whole weekend just trying things out.
- Tried filming through sheer fabric for a blurred, obscured look.
- Used a single desk lamp as my main light source, moving it around to create long shadows.
- Focused on small details – dust motes in a light beam, the texture of wood grain, fingers tracing lines on a page.
- Had a friend help with a couple of shots, mostly just holding the phone steady or being a vague shape in the background. It felt weird asking, given the theme.
Honestly, a lot of it was just trial and error. Some shots looked terrible, way too dark or just plain boring. Others kinda worked. It was slow going. Getting the focus right in low light was a pain. Lots of blurry garbage footage I had to delete.
Putting It All Together (The Messy Part)
Then came editing. Ugh. I used some free software on my laptop. It kept crashing. Seriously frustrating. I wasn’t trying to make a story, more like stringing together these visual moments. I found some royalty-free ambient music, something low and droning. It helped glue things together. The main job was color grading. I pushed the blues and grays, desaturated a lot of the colors, trying to make it look cold and a bit grim. Spent hours just tweaking contrast and shadows. It’s amazing how much you can change the feel of a shot just by messing with the colors.
So, What Came Out?
In the end, I got this short… thing. Maybe five minutes long. It’s not polished. It’s rough. It definitely feels dark, maybe unsettling. It doesn’t explain anything, just presents these fragmented images. Is it exactly what I pictured? Nah, not really. But it feels like something I needed to make. Like scratching an itch. It captured a fraction of that feeling I got from the book. Sharing it feels weird, but I guess documenting the process helps make sense of it. It’s just a record of me trying to work something out visually. That’s all it is, really.
