By Kaitlyn Adair
I decided that 2022 would be the year I make a short film every month. I had a feeling that January would be a rough covid month, so I decided to go with an idea I could shoot all on my own. I wanted to shoot an ultra-short film about an influencer who, while on live, catches a radioactive snowflake on her tongue. I intended to shoot it found-footage style using my iPhone and playing with slow-motion effects.
Last year a large branch from a tree fell through my deck. I saw this as an opportunity for some eclectic natural decor and decorated it with lights. The lights created a soft, warm light at night—my ideal shooting scenario. Despite January being a fairly snowy month, not once did it snow at night. Patiently, I waited with everything prepared. Fake blood made. Faux prosthetic tongue made. Finally, a significant snowstorm was scheduled for January 25th. During the day, while big fluffy snowflakes fell, I thought I should take precautions and do a practice shoot just in case.
My first practice went OK but being too familiar with social media shooting; I still held my phone in portrait. Oops. So I went out again and shot it in landscape mode. I knew I wanted a slow-motion shot to kick off the film, so I set my frame rate to 60/fps. Unfortunately, I never changed it back for the regular shots and accidentally didn’t record the final shot. So again, I went back out. Again I screwed up. This time I got the perfect shot; everything worked, except my frame didn’t match the previous shot, so I had to wash the fake blood out of my hair and reshoot one final time. All this just for a test shot!
I watched the footage back and really liked it. Thank goodness, because didn’t it literally stop snowing when the darkness finally came. I learned several lessons on this small project, but the biggest one was not to wait for the perfect moment because the snow may never come.
In February, the short film will be released on my Youtube channel: CLICK HERE. Subscribe to my Instagram, CLICK HERE, to stay up to date with my journey!