Brainstorm

The various elements of a young man’s mind are projected and analyzed, providing a snapshot into the oddities and inconsistencies of existence.

Brainstorm was created for my “Writing and Directing for Film” class at Virginia Tech. Amidst several other projects and commitments between our collective schedules, it was enjoyable work for everyone involved. The film was practically self-funded on a budget of roughly $350, utilizing most of my own personal equipment. In regards to location, Brainstorm was filmed on the Virginia Tech campus, and in a few surrounding areas of Blacksburg, Virginia. A stylistic precursor to Harmony (2018), the concept was particularly influenced by improvisation, and the Kuleshov effect, in that a film’s meaning derives from the sequencing of otherwise random images and scenarios, as opposed to those isolated elements. A loose breakdown of each scenario was prepared, for the sake of logistical preparation, in addition to an outline for the narration, but the final product was genuinely born in the editing room, like many experimental films or works of visual art. In any case, my primary hope is that viewers simply enjoy the finished product.

This project was quite a delightful challenge, in the sense that I was thrown into unfamiliar territory at the behest of my professor, who urged me to work on something much more personal, more direct than my previous endeavors. Momentous (2016), Essence (2017), Spark (2017), and Menace (2017) had all been written within a fairly conventional narrative structure. This was my attempt to follow my professor's stern suggestions, to assess the way in which I approach cinema, up close and personal, rather than from a distance.

A radically different work in my student filmography at that point, Brainstorm opened my eyes to the possibilities within a cinema of engagement, one of self-reflexivity. No less worthwhile than the aforementioned projects, this hybrid piece concluded a remarkably prolific year in my student filmmaking career.