UNTITLED MENTAL EPISODE is an embarrassingly personal story about my struggle with self loathing and mental illness, written to be more widely applicable towards any given person viewing the film. Despite that premise, I've had a very fun time working on the project. I'm surprised having to tread the old ground of a mindset I've moved past already didn't make things harder for me in the present day. I had a lot of time before production to think on the type of tone and environment I wanted to create, and I think I was able to capture almost exactly what I wanted.

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The production followed a similar structure to my previous short film, made of many parts, in the sense that I am once again creating pencil drawings on paper cutouts and recording them through stop motion animation. However, this time, I am placing a large emphasis on mixed media, particularly through the frequent use of digital compositing through a video editing software. Instead of recording backgrounds on sheets of paper, I am simply shooting the paper cutouts in front of a green sheet of construction paper, allowing me to utilize green screen tools to set anything I want as a background. The green screen wasn't entirely perfect, and a lot of residual noise and grain were left over after applying the filter. That's okay, though, because noise and grain work just fine for the visual aesthetic I wanted. For the backgrounds, I used a handful of stock images that were filtered to fit the type of dream-like grungy aesthetic I was attempting to capture through the visuals. Through these backgrounds, I was finally able to pay homage to old indie visual novel settings that have stuck with me ever since I read them.

 

I also made an effort to concentrate on sound more than I have done before. I used a lot of static and white noise, which gets louder during moments where the subject is tuning out their present reality. On top of this, I also had help from my friend Ellie, who provided amazing voice acting and was able to elevate the film to a whole new level of quality. I was blown away watching during recording sessions.

 

I hope this film is able to help people reflect on how they treat themselves. I made UNTITLED MENTAL EPISODE with the intention of having the viewer project on to the subject, despite their unlikable personality and interactions at the beginning. The subject makes a few poor choices, left intentionally vague so that the viewer can form their own perspective, and find a way to relate it to their own life experience. This film comes from a place of healing, and I hope that intention shines through the prominently depressing mood.

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