Introduction of Idea

The initial idea for the film “I’m Uncomfortable” came from hearing of people’s bad experiences with the opposite sex during parties and on nights out in town. It baffled me that in a world where things like this are coming more and more to light, that there hadn’t been any films/videos made about it. 

Another subject matter I wanted to try and tackle during the experimental module was social anxieties at parties and what effect that can have on the individual. 

I decided to put the two together. The film would focus on a girl suffering with social anxieties during a party and, as the party went on, she’d gain lots of unwanted attention from males and struggle to cope, this eventually sending her into a downward spiral. 

Around this time, I’d also been watching the work of Andrea Arnold, her films “Fish Tank” and “American Honey”. There are moments in both these films where the female protagonist is being held by someone they don’t want too, shot in an uncomfortably composed extreme close-up. Watching this made my skin crawl and started giving me ideas as to how to convey the feelings my character would feel. 

I wanted something a little more than just tight close-ups throughout the films. This got me thinking about how the anxieties and current situation might be playing around with her other senses. I decided then that the audience would hear what she hears, heightened/exaggerated versions of everything around her. One idea I had would show the shadows of people at the party rushing past her room from the slant at the bottom her door. At first, we would hear just footsteps going past. This would eventually transition into a fast, intense drum roll, subjectively conveying her anxieties. 

Once we started to crew up and more people became involved, the idea began to evolve slightly. We started looking at everything that touched on the subject matters we were going to cover.

Hannah had suggested some slam poems, some about sexual harassment, others about anxiety. They all helped. The pace and emotion these people spoke in reflected something I wanted the film to have. They felt cut throat, personal, as though not saying what they wanted might kill them. The ones that touched on sexual harassment spoke of it like something creeping on them, calculated but predatorial. The ones about social anxiety talked about the anxieties in much of the same way.