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Logistics of CUE JANE

I finished my first round of audition on the past weekend. Among the actresses who came for the audition, I loved three of them and will give them call back. Since it’s a story about middle-aged actresses, I would love to know how they feel about it. Many of the actresses told me that they related to the story as someone who needs to make a hard decision between her career and family because they have children to raise. And I can tell that the actresses who have their priority on their families are definitely more catch the feeling that I want for Jane. There is a lady who even cried while sharing her story of choosing her first big role and being with her father when she was young. 

After really talking to them, I feel that I need to be more honest to the script. I have this responsibility of bringing their true feeling into the stories not just go as I think they should feel or react. I want to tell a story about these actresses not just use their pain and happiness to fake a show. That’s why I am still working on the script. I am still not satisfied with the draft that I have. I am going to talk to an alumnus whose father has Alzheimer’s disease and see how I can address that in my script. I cut off many unnecessary descriptions so to have a clearer map of the story. I am thinking of replacing Mrs.Johnson to a caregiver who is late and delay Jane’s schedule. 

Talking about my production schedule, I found two DPs that I would like to work with and I am going to meet them within this week and hopefully, to settle one before this weekend. My producer is still looking for PD and first AD for the second-weekend shoot which is a slight headache to me. I am going to have a second round audition and call back this weekend and hopefully finalize my script. I will start doing off-campus location scouting during the weekdays. I want to lock my locations before the end of October.

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Character Arc-CUE JANE

Jane Lee (45) is an aging actress who mainly gets mediocre roles. She always feels like setting a goal for herself but when incidents happened and she couldn’t reach the goal, it isn’t easy for her to pass herself. That’s why she wants everything, but she ends up getting nothing. She couldn’t make up her mind to make a sacrifice for something more important for her.  

After her mother died in a car accident and her bigger brother Dan moved to China living with his Chinese wife, she is now taking care of her father Edward Lee who is suffering Alzheimer’s disease. It takes more time and patience. Jane cannot make up her mind sending Edward to either the care center or China, she struggles taking care by herself. Life gets harder as she wants to take care of both sides but ended up sacrificing both sides and puts herself in a position that she feels she is being miserable for nothing good. 

I was going through multiple problems in my life when I came up with this idea. Moving houses trice in a month, breaking up, getting bad news back home and too many creative assignments that require long peaceful time…... I wasn’t able to handle any part of my life when they all came to me at the same time. At that point, I just wished someone can yield “cut!” and I realize that’s not my life, that’s the role of Sophie that I am playing. Somehow thinking of that, makes me feel a bit of relaxing.

I wanted to be an actress when I was young. But I was too self-cautious to purchase my dream. Luckily the feeling for acting still remains in my heart.  Thus, I create an aging actress who is going through a similar situation as I was. On one hand, she is told to take quick or less wanted roles so she can find her way to the top faster, as an actress at this age who is still not very well known. She wants to break the routine of taking mediocre roles, which will require fully passion and time. On the other hand, she is too keen on face-saving that she doesn’t want to send her father to an old people house being fed by other impatient nurses when she is capable of taking care of him. And she isn’t sure the career she is having, deserve to sacrifice the time she has with her father. She wants everything. But she ends up sacrificing both sides and getting nothing. Fail to handle both of her family and her “career” yet she still cannot make a decision. Deep inside her, she knows that she needs to make a decision but she just doesn’t want to face it right now. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, until the day when she realizes her father goes missing when she is waiting for such an important audition. Only at this moment, does she realizes what’s more important to her. She needs to stop the chaos in her life and make a decision. The first scene of Jane will be her wearing a frog costume makes a phone call asking about her father. It represents her identity and her problem in life at this moment. Later on, I will have handheld following her back to show the audience what kind of world she is facing at the real time. Like documentary. Reference: The Wrestler; Blue is the Warmest Color; Fish Tank

I would love to cast Julia Roberts, Kate Winslet.

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CUE JANE - Moment of realization

In the conventional storytelling structure, there are ACT1, ACT2 and ACT3. We usually start setting up situations and introduce characters and the obstacles in ACT1. In ACT2, which is the main part of the story, we will see how our protagonist overcomes the obstacle in order to reach their goals. However, before the protagonist really achieves their goals, at the end of the ACT2, the biggest secret of the story or the real enemy must be unfolded and our protagonist usually will fail on them. At that point, they will have to make a decision to sacrifice something in order to overcome the obstacle that is bigger than the older version of them. That say, there will be a moment that the protagonist realizes, in order to get the goal, they has to change, or do something they would never do before.  That’s a decision the protagonist has to make: whether they would stay the same or make the change and reach the goal. Then in ACT3, we will see what happens after the protagonist makes the decision. Sometimes even they change, they don’t reach the goal that was set earlier, but they reach a realization after changing themselves which satisfied their inner needs.

In my film, apparently, Jane needs to catch up an audition which is considered a big role for her. As the background I set for her, she isn’t treated fair in the career she chases after. That’s why the audition is important to her. She refuses her father’s request of going out, she buys gift for the neighbor who has taken care of her father so she doesn’t need to worry about the expensive fee for sending her father to an old people house for the time being; she even pooping the car but still insisted to catch the audition. At this point, it’s very clear that she has done something for getting into the audition. However, when she reached the audition, she suddenly finds out that her father wanders out of the house. When her name is called, she decided to go for the audition.(This is one of the big moment but it’s not the moment of realization since she hasn’t made the change that makes her change.) The judges asked if she wanted to try another role which is way smaller than the one she prepared and the reason they gave to her is the role fits her appearance and it’s more insecure for them. At that moment, she realizes, she has been living in an illusion that people set for her. They all try to convince her to take roles that fit her better, or stupid role, because it’s less competitive. But that’s not what she wants. All the sacrifice she made isn’t for being stupid and let the audience entertained. None of this worth having her father wandering outside alone. Jane realizes that she needs to step back and see what’s her essential needs. And her father, Edward represents the essential need for Jane. At this moment of realization, Jane wakes up and decides to chase her father/ her original meaning of life back.

When I shoot this scene, I will start from a shot of her silhouette taking elevator going up and seeing the city become smaller under her feet as she feels that she is going upper. When she enters the hallway outside the audition room, posters and the publicity products decorate the audition into a big deal. And several actresses at her age are also waiting outside, one of them even wear sunglasses for the sake of mystery.When she prepares the role outside the room, I will use close-up following her till she takes out the phone and finds out her father is missing.The editing will be fast and messy as she feels anxious. When her name is called. I will jump out to an MS, her POV, looking at the door of the audition opening in front of her. Then, I will use handheld long shot following her back enter the room and eventually pan to the judges. Because I want to keep it at the real time so the intention will not get cut off. As the conversation starts and Jane realizes that she is tricked, the shot will be from a high angle and she is feeling pressure and trapped. At that point, I will avoid tight shots. I want to make her isolated and helpless. For the judges, I will keep them at the center and always have three of them in one frame even just one of them is talking. Because the reaction of other judges faces also give Jane pressure at the same time.When the phone in her pocket vibrates, I will have a rug focus CU from her pocket to the judges in the background. When she stands up as she decides to quit the audition, I will have a CU from her back so to bring the audience to her as close as possible.Once she runs outside of the building, the quick cut will help to bring up her speed so to show her determination of finding her father. This will be the end of my ACT2. I am still trying to find a better consistent way to build up the tension, express her feeling. I want to go as the similar tone when Randy quits his job in the market in the film The Wrestler.

References: 

Emotions of the moments of realization: 

1. The Wrestler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5QRedcFBc0&t=11

2. Fish Tank: When she leaves the stage without a word in her audition.

Moment of realization

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CUE JANE_How to deal with my dialogue scene

Cue Jane is a character-driven story in which most of the scenes are following the protagonist showing her action when she is alone. Meanwhile, I try to avoid dialogues so to maintain a subtle and silent tone in the film. Thus, there are few dialogue scenes.

1. One of the main conversation happens when Jane leaves the house and finds the flyer about old people care center when her neighbor Mrs.Johnson comes to tell her that she cannot help her like she used to anymore. 

From the conversation, we know that Mrs.Johnson usually take care of Edward. But since her grandson is coming, she won’t be that free. Jane doesn’t want to send her father to an old people care center which is also considered an irresponsible thing. That’s why, at the beginning of the scene, when Jane is reading the flyer we will hear Mrs.Johnson/s voice first, I will have shift focus shot, from Jane rolling the flyers and putting it in the pocket in front to revealing Mrs. Johnson in the background. On one hand, Jane doesn’t want people to notice that she is considering sending her father to the care center, on the other hand, at some point, the flyer and Mrs. Johnson are the choices that Jane has to make and Jane choose Mrs.Johnson. As Jane starts talking to her, we stay with Mrs. Johnson showing an OTS of Jane walking closer to Mrs. Johnson.   When Mrs.Johnson comes closer to tell Jane that she may not be that flexible, I will have a two-shot from aside showing her movement of coming closer. The last shot of the scene is a medium close-up of Jane listening to Mrs.Johnson  talking while her head is on the left side of the camera and she feels worried.  When Mrs. Johnson leans back Jane is on her right side, Jane changes to another expression and tells Mrs. Johnson not to worry. By using her head movements from left to right, showing that she used to hide her real concern but pretends she is fine. 

2. When Jane is waiting for Edward outside of the restroom, I will have a full shot showing the silhouette of her leaning on the wall. At that time, listening to the sound of her father having trouble going to the toilet and digesting the fact that her acting got cut off, Jane realizes she is not taking care of both sides of her life. She is in a low status.

After Edward comes out, he holds Jane’s hand telling her that he wants to go out. We see a close-up showing his hand grabs Jane’s hand tightly. Then we hear he saying “I want to go out.” while cut to a close-up of Edward biting his lips nervously waiting for Jane’s answer. And then the OTS of Jane refusing his request. When Edward leaves Jane, we have a full shot of Jane standing in the hallway alone in silhouette effect as I intend to hide her emotion from the audience. 

The whole scene will be handheld on a steady cam. More close-up when they are talking and then cut to wide silhouette shot when Jane is alone in the hallway. 

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CUE JANE-Director Vision Statement

What is the film about? Why do you want to tell this story?

The story is about an actress trying to catch up an audition which she is told that could be a big chance, but it turns out that after overcoming the obstacles she encounters, is not the audition that she really needs, but the true value and the original goal of her life that she should be chasing for. Jane is a middle aged actress who usually gets small roles that will not help her going any further in the industry but simply keeps her in an illusion that she is still chasing acting dreams. After the divorce, she lives with her father Edward who is suffering Alzheimer’s disease. Swinging between taking care Edward by herself and the “career”, Jane tries to balance her life which as time goes by, drags her down to the miserable position where she couldn’t handle both sides as good as it should be. It’s time for her to take a break and step back to look at the bigger picture of what she is really doing and what she should do considering the direction of her life and gain more faith to carry on.Through out the period of coming up this idea, there isn’t a moment I was not feeling miserable and enjoyable at the same time. I had a hard time figuring out what I want to say. I felt very lost.  I started asking myself what puts me in this position today and I realized that the reason I got lost is that I allow myself to be disturbed by too many voices, bad and good, on the way to my destination(which I don’t even know where at this moment). 

Us human beings are good at creating an illusion for our lives. They want to make things look good or big so that they have reason to live for. But the longer we live in the illusion, the further we will be from our destination.

And at one point of time, when the illusion is over, the sky becomes clearer, you realise you have been so miserable but things never change, then you got lost. That’s when we need to step back and think, what goes wrong and what is more needed in this moment before we are ready for what we want. Thus, I create Jane. Jane wants to be an actress. By taking small or stupid roles, she is able to maintain a truth that she is still fighting for her career. But can she really call it a career? She isn’t going anyway further or be recognized by more people. She just like most of us, who is suffering lots of things for nothing. Who is being miserable for nothing. She is unconsciously sacrificing both her acting career and her relationship with her father just to have this figure as a hard working daughter. What really scares me is we often find enough reasons to allow ourselves to do wrong things. The people and the environment give this illusion that she is meant to play a stupid role, she should make it her best thing. People are giving her advice on how to be successful instead of how to be someone she wants to be. People are critiquing without considering her true needs. And Jane is so stupid that she believes this illusion and fights for it. When she is misled to take the audition, she thought she is doing the right thing for her own sake, till she finds out her father goes missing. Whatever happens in front of her eyes, all these “big chance” has no value anymore. No matter how big the show is, the fact of playing another stupid role will not change. It’s all sands wrapped in a beautiful package. It’s all illusion.

But knowing you are in a wrong place or you have walked on a wrong path isn’t that terrible. Because that’s part of our lives. What matters is you realize it and say goodbye to it. When knowing her father is missing, Jane wakes up. She leaves the audition and runs to find what’s more important to her. The missing father also represents her essential goal which is missing because of her carelessness. Finding back what matters to you most in the world full of illusion is the message of the film. We need to stay true.

2. How does the film look like? What’s the tone?

Through out the film, we will see Jane overcomes lots of unexpected trouble on the way to the audition. Some of the action may seem funny but after noticing she is in a hurry and she is going through all for nothing makes the film more miserable. The tone for the film will be subtle. I try to limit the dialogues and will spend more time focusing on her action. It’s very life like, and serious with a bit of humor. It will make the audience feel”Isn’t it how life is”.

It’s a realistic style story so most of the scenes will be shot on real locations. I will catch the most representative elements of LA and bring interesting composition of this city and the character into the film. Traffic jam, multiple races, layers of highway bridges so as the homeless people on the street. I would like to have the film down on the ground and make it feel like a story that could happen to anyone who lives in LA.

I will have a lot of follow shots of Jane in the film and the details on her. When she goes to a wide location, I would like to have wide shot to make her smaller and more power lesser.

3. How do the films influence you?

As I mentioned on lots of occasions, I am a big fan of character driven story. Since young, I consider myself as a mirror reflecting the people I encounter in my life. I like observing people and seek patterns from human beings. I am curious about how the characters deal with their lives under different situations. Why we are so different? what influence our personalities and even influence our fates? How did we end up being in this position? Based on that, I believe films like The Wrestler, Bellissima, The salesman, All about Eve, Volver, Tori Erdmann, Manchester by the sea influenced me very much while coming up with this idea. They have brilliant characters. Spending time follow their lives give you big enough picture

4. What’s their statement?

Darren Aronofsky - The Wrestler

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103205984

Bellissima

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/54110/bellissima/

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Reflection Paper on COCOON

You see a young girl sitting in the blue moon light missing her dead boyfriend, you see she is so brave to break her hymen in the fantasy with her boyfriend, you see she rebirth under the sunshine but what you never see, are the mistakes I made and the lessons I learnt from the mistakes which eventually succeeds to metamorphose a cocoon into butterfly.

I am never satisfied with this project, even when I was writing the script. For 600 I aimed at training myself on using symbolise elements to emphasis my theme. I got an idea about a girl trying to lose her virginity to her ex-boyfriend but I couldn’t find the right metaphor to express it and many of my American classmates had no connect to my character. On the way to solve the problem, I l realise I can make the ex-boyfriend died so let the girl “has no choice”, and I limit the characters in the story, clarify the conflict among Anita, my main character, her ex-boyfriend and her new love. I choose cocoon metamorphose butterfly as symbolic core and it worked. In order to emphasis this theme, I limit the story happening in one room, and use half closet to externalize her inner status. I putted a lot of hard work on PD but also met big trouble which I will explain later. 

At first, Anita should be a quiet Chinese student from biological major. However, when I was having audition, I met a Latino girl, Sharon, who could make any actor felt comfortable to act with her and she did great job. While most of the Asian girls were very shy to really show themselves. So I decide to have her be my new Anita and I made a good choice. What I learnt from this best audition is if you have a scene that requires both your actor and actress be in there, instead of having someone cold read for them, it’s better to have two people really act the scene out, then you will not only see the chemistry between them but also see the problem in your script. Also, if I insist to have an Asian actress, I may not have same comfortable atmosphere which helps the shooting a lot on my set. Sometimes try not to hold on your condition which may limit you finding the best girl, especially when you try to make everyone comfortable on a set with intimate scenes.

I spent too much time working on the script, so I had to speed up to catch up other part of pre-production. During the week when I was about to have my shooting days, no one is available to help me as PD so I had to cover all the PD stuff by myself. Since I limit the location, I thought I could handle it but I was wrong. In order to show “cocoon” in my film wherever it could be, I bought a lot of decorate stuff and books and clothes. But when we were shooting, considering the shots we designed, there weren’t much space to show all the PD stuff as props or as background dressing. I wasted my budget on unnecessary set dressing stuff. 

Lack of person on key position is anther HUGE issue for Cocoon. Luckily, I have Amanda A to be my set dresser on my set so I don’t have to worry too much about my PD on set. But my AD was there only for one day and a while, there wasn’t a person tell the crew at what time they should do what. So every time when I finished one shot I had to run to my shot list and said ok let’ do this shot next. I don’t even have people to help me do the slate. This cause two big problems on set. First, as director, I had to divide my energy to other stuff and couldn’t focus on my directing. My UPM Lovish tried his best to maintain the set but I still felt stress. He would calm me down whenever he found I was not at the right place. Second, lack of managing also gave the whole team a very bad influence. On the first day, the shooting was over 12 hours. No one complain anything but it influence the atmosphere of working. I had to thank my DP Scarlett who kept doing handheld shots for me and it made her shoulder hurt for nearly one week. On the second day, since I forgot to prepare the photos of Anita and her new boyfriend, I had to call the actor be on set earlier than we planed. After taking the photo, he was on set for nearly five hours and did nothing. At around 10pm, when I was talking to my gaffer, the actor suddenly said that he has been here for whole day and just speak two lines that he had to go out to get some fresh air and he just left. We were slightly shocked about what just happened. As a actor, he shouldn’t leave before he finishes his work under 12 hours. My gaffer Varun and Lovish clam me down. I went out and talked to my actor, saying we will speed up and finish his scene as soon as possible. Once we warp, I felt so relief yet so unsettle. I don’t know what kind of story I just shot under such messy status. I didn’t have the courage to check my footage until I finish three other sets.

After I checked the footage, I told myself no one can bring this thing back to life but you, so no matter how disappointed you feel, you have to give it a surgery and make it as good as possible. I spend a lot of time analysing the emotion and moment that I could play around. I add music at the part where could direct people to feel her emotion and it matched the plot very well. The rough cut turned out to be 11 minutes. But everyone was surprised to see its growing strength. I showed it to my co-producer Torrance and he suggested me to take out the second guy and just focus on the conflict between Anita and her dead boyfriend. I tried and it turned out to be simple, clear and tight. This time the cut was only 6 minutes. After showing the cut, my professor J.T said I was brave to make this decision and it totally worked without the second annoying actor. 

From this point, I started adding more confidence on my project. I contact my friend who studies composing in San Fransisco to compose for my film. I also worked hard on Protool and Davinci so to save this project more from sound design and color correction. I was told not to use Davinci because the footage is shot by EX3. But I disagree. The main point of using Davinci is not only trying to make the image more beautiful but to learn how to operate it before you really need it to bring the story to a higher level. I would like to make stupid mistakes in 550 instead of ruining my 600. Instead of one day of transcoding as other people threatened me, I only used two hours to finish the whole transcoding process with the help of Yixia Li.

During the whole process, I kept feeling bad that I couldn’t feel enough passion on this project. When I see people design amazing credit for their films or even make posters, I feel lack of courage to introduce this project. I smile to everyone, telling them it’s getting there, but deep inside only I know it can never be as beautiful as it is in my head. The good thing about this is I learnt big lesson from this project. And I feel proud that I carry on during post production process. It’s my baby. No matter how disappointed I feel about my footage(I have amazing crew, when I say I feel disappointed that only means I could have fully used their strength to make it perfect), I shall never give up but try my best. 

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DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT-550

Title: COCOON

Logline: Anita realizes losing her virginity to her ex who already has a new girl maybe the only way for her to move on. 

After creating a story about a middle-aged housewife who met her ex-lover on street (Meaningless Red), I realize that I am very interested and adept at showing human’s struggle and entanglement. For a less than 9-minute short film, I simply want to focus on an interesting character and tell a story about this person. It could be a moment he/she involves in or an important decision he/she makes. According to this self-knowledge, I browsed through many valuable subjects in my life and finally, I stumbled upon an interesting phenomenon among teenage girls.

Virginity, hyped by cultural and religious beliefs, is viewed as a symbol of pureness of a woman, especially in developing countries. If a bride is found to be not virgin in China, sometimes the husband will think he picked up a “broken shoe” from another man. Moreover, it also changes his attitude towards his bride. As western views liberating female sexuality percolates through mainland China, more and more people have accepted the freedom of women to have sex before marriage. The importance of virginity, however, still lives in young generation’s view. 

When I was growing up, many girls have confessed to me that they wanted to give their “first time” to their ex right after they break up. Ironically, when they are together, these same girls would usually prohibit any advances from their boyfriends to have sex. I soon realize this is something special with teenager girls’ mentality. Sometimes, when girls find out their ex-boyfriend already have a new girl and happen to know they already have sex, they will feel jealous. They think they used to love each other so much, and she should be the one the boys want to have sex with. How can they just move on and find new girls and have sex in such a short time? They don't feel JUSTICE. (They feel no reconciled.) So they would like to have sex with ex-boyfriend to make sure that this boy still has some feeling for them and will remember their relationship forever. 

Considering the significance of teenagers’ attitude towards virginity, I’ve come up with the story of a 16-year-old girl who happens to meet these problems. And when she realizes there is no way to break other’s relationship to make herself move on, she make a decision on her own. The reason they break up doesn’t matter that much anymore. What brings her to this point and how she is going to deal with it is what the short film is about. There is a strong personal struggle in the story. And in the end the girl’s decision will also bring audience some thoughts after watching it. 

Character: My protagonist Anita is a teenage girl who tries to lose her virginity to her ex-boyfriend Philip in order to move on. Like a cocoon, she goes into a metamorphosis- She is stuck in her own point of view thinking virginity is a natural gift and she cares about it so much that she doesn’t want to lose it to other boys. So eventually, after she knows she cannot lose her virginity to her ex, she figures she’d rather do it it BY HERSELF than lose this important moment to someone else less worthy of it. This is the moment when she comes out of the cocoon and becomes the butterfly. This is the decision she made for her own good. Her attitude is the result of a fight between a poor girl who fails to have sex with her ex-boyfriend and the new awaken powerful female consciousness inside that girl. It’s pathetic yet remarkable. 

The problem I am facing is to show more about Anita, her family or other sides so to convince people she is that kind of girl who can be strong enough to lose it by herself. 

The male roles in the short film are very typical because I don’t want to spend extra time on describing them. Philip is very handsome and sweet, even after breaking up he is able to control himself from hurting his new girlfriend which makes us believe he is worth Anita’s tears. The reason I add a beat that he texts Anita after meeting her is because he actually cannot totally get rid of her. I was about to add a scene that Philip sees Anita talking to Joe so he feels jealous and tries to pull Anita back from Joe. I am still considering whether it’s necessary to have this scene though. This beat also reflects the determination of Anita. Compared with Philip, the basketball star in school, the new boy Joe is more like a quiet smart nerd. 

The story is very simple so I will try to use other visual parts like cinematography and production design to enhance my point of view. For instance, her room is in total mess in reality, while in her imagination the things inside her brain will also be shown on the screen, like banana. For costume, she keeps wearing his shirt before she breaks her hymen by herself, while she changes to white pajamas on the second day. White color makes girl seem free, light and pure. 

Cinematography, to be honest the cinematography style comes earlier into my mind than the whole story. First, this story is a serious drama, more like European film style. I want the camera consistently focused on my protagonist and use close up as much as possible. Her eyes, her neck, her hair and her skin, I want to capture every possible details that may express her state of mind. Meanwhile, using close up on characters’ bodies but not the key parts can also avoid the inconvenience of sexual scene, like in the car and when she masturbates in the end. I once watched a short film called MAGNISUM (https://vimeo.com/67077975) and I really appreciate its cinematography style. It’s about a gymnastic girl’s struggle, so the camera follows the girl tightly and always close to her head and face which gives you a strong and direct connection to the main character. Second, for camera movement, most of the shots are still and slightly shaky. The camera will follow the movement of her hand when she lies in the bed though. And I will try to use more slow, long shots to extend the moments. I always like the style in Blue is the warmest color and the way they choose the angle. I would like to talk about it more in my look book. 

Dialogue in my script has its function as showing the relationship among these characters and even throw some information that I cannot show in a visual way. Anita refused to have sex with Philip when they were together, and now she wants to have sex with him. I don’t want to simply use a flashback (their happy hours should only exist in her laptop in present time) telling people that she refused him before, so I choose “too late?” to give hint. And the blood that comes out from Anita’s legs may clear the point too. 

At this initial stage of creating my film, I’m still facing many hurdles on making the story believable and making my character’s action reasonable. Making people believe giving up the identity of a virgin could be so important in someone’s life as the biggest barrier that I still have to overcome. 

Why would a girl want to break her hymen by herself? 1. She is only 16 and she has been told through various media that girls should give up their virginity to someone important to them. So when she feels she cannot lose her virginity to someone important, she is pushed by herself to break it on her own. 2. At this point, she is more innocent though. She doesn’t care whether people will judge her for not being a virgin anymore. She just does what her heart tells her to do. Eventually, she breaks it. Just like the butterfly, she comes out from her cocoon. It’s so beautiful and powerful. Anita’s decision is the end of her old view on virginity and beginning of a lifelong journey about understanding female sexuality.

I sincerely believe this is a subject that’s worth putting all my heart and energy and I believe it’s my responsibility as a filmmaker to portray this subject.