OVERVIEW
Despite being a business major, I wrote, directed, and produced an 18-page screenplay focused on Asian American representation and highlighting the challenges encountered by first-generation college students over the course of a year. This project was my greatest passion undertaking to date.
How does one create an entire film production from scratch and zero resources?
These were questions I asked myself as I embarked on this journey. After I wrote the script, I needed to rely heavily on my passion and entrepreneurial abilities to get this project underway. After a lot of dead ends, and a very fortunate scholarship win, the project finally came to fruition.
I utilized Notion to stay on track with all steps of the production.
- Maintained a kanban board for tasks and timeline for filming, casting, and preproduction
- Created separate pages for each dept. head to help track progress
- Created moodboards and color palettes to share with the team, and contribute to the visual aesthetic of the project
Working closely with my DP, we created a floorplan to effectively match with our storyboards to create a cohesive plan for our shoot days. This helped us visualize where to block our actors as well as plan our camera movements.
This is the shot-list that was created. It broke down each individual scene into their shots/coverage and our DP added a 3D visualization to help better understand the coverage. This enabled us to properly divide the scenes into a manageable three day production
THE STORY
"Jasmine, an Indian-American senior in college, struggles to prepare for an upcoming violin audition to gain admission to a coveted grad program. As she works on crafting her original audition piece, she confronts her strained relationship with her mom and the realities of generational trauma."
The biggest inspirations to write the screenplay were Everything Everywhere All At Once, and the bestselling novel, Crying in H Mart. These were both media where I saw myself and the immigrant experience represented in a unique way, and it empowered me to confront these themes head on. I was especially inspired by how Michelle Zauner wrote about reconnecting with her Korean heritage through food, and wanted to touch on how food can connect us all. I wrote this script because I know many people who deal with perfectionism, anxiety, and burnout in college due to being first-generation students, and I wanted to create media that would not only shine light on these emotions, but also help others by making them feel less alone.
TRAILER