Uprooted : a study of cinematic tone

When a film is marketed as a particular genre, audiences expect the story to follow a general set of conventions. For instance, viewers are accustomed to watching couples fall in and out of love, with love usually earning the final victory, in most romantic comedies. With my thesis, I wanted to challenge myself to make a short film that transitioned between two genres, to create a variety of tones. This began with a script, continued with the cast and crew, and ended with an editing timeline that helped the story flow from one emotion to another. The resulting film taught me how the various pieces of the production puzzle fit together to sculpt a story with multiple tones. From here, I hope my thesis will inspire other students to not restrict themselves to genre constraints and tell stories that contain layered atmospheres.