What's going on here?!
psychotropic medication, high school, wilderness, dreams, a white room, a teenage girl and a counselor
Florence is a teenage girl is overtly captivated by her hypersensitive perspective of the world. Her disposition to avoid or disengage with uneasing large societal spaces like school has led her to become misdiagnosed as having a "mental illness," and thus prescribed psychotropic medication. The film follows Florence on her first day of prescription through her sensory-rich perception of her environment.
Florence is the senior thesis film of Caleb b. Kuntz's (me/I) Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Texas at Austin. The story is an amalgamation of values and ideas :
- The glaringly apparent overmedicating of today's U.S. youth (U.S. children consume over three times as much ADD & psychiatric medication than all other global youth combined)
- Deeply affected family members and friends
- Personal fear of psychiatric medication
Aesthetics of Florence
I want to re-create the world through Florence’s mind. I want the audience to feel the audio-logical suffocation that Florence feels in school spaces; I want them to feel the freedom and
absolute unworldly connection she feels out in the wilderness. I
want to completely manipulate the environment in every cinematic aspect possible to bring
the audience into Florence’s perception.
To tell the story of Florence there are several strong decisions and themes being incorporated to bring us directly into Florence's perception of the world.
First & foremost the words of award-winning sound designer Randy Thom are resonating through the entire production, that is of, "aurally conceived cinema." Of all the five senses, the most completely replicated of them in cinema is hearing, and thus, extreme attention has been paid to sound.
whatever Florence hears, we hear.
Every day social life generally causes unease and anxiety in Florence, so as a coping method she makes use of nature ambiences being played through headphones. When she's only wearing one headphone, we are greeted by soothing rainforest sounds in one ear, and grating, nauseas alterations of school ambiences in the other. As such, we become Florence.
In a similar vein, Florence finds extreme comfort and solace within the wilderness and outdoors counter to her anxiety revolving around societal spaces. To show this visually, all interactions in the wilderness will be shot on 35mm film for it's soft, warm, tangible grain qualities. While everything else will be shot on the Arri Alexa for it's sharp, sterile, digital noise qualities. This use of multiple formats atop elaborated production design further enunciates Florence's perception.
The Power of Community
I feel anything that one can do on their own can only become grander if one gives into the power of communal energy. If nothing else, this is how I seek to pursue and strengthen my endeavors...
Having worked in coordinating large community events back in my hometown of Fairbanks, Alaska, I followed a familiar infrastructure in constructing the world and production of Florence:
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The script was written working in triage over a six-month period with Co-Writers Yamel Thompson and Kyle Seaquist.
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The visual aesthetic was constructed with Production Designer Allie Lane and deciding-ly captured with the energies and planning of Cinematographer Jim Hickcox and Gaffer Ben Ellsworth-Feher.
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The auditorial capturing and designing has been in conjunction with Sound Designer Rui Silva and Sound Recordist Sebastian Bisbal.
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All acting decisions were joint ventures between director and actors: Josephine McAdam, Dan Hershberger, Ali Meier, Hal Schneider, and David Hess.
Needless to say, the entire production is a construction of a communal ideology, from concept to conception. The resulting product has shown to bare fruit far exceeding the initial formulating notions that led to the screenplay.
Despite principal photography completing on July 27th, there is still much to be achieved before Florence manifests into anything resembling a film.
...and to reach that point we need our finalizing members of our community,
~ YOU ~
What's going to happen to your money...
a million billion thanks in advance!
Films simply cost quite a bit of money...well, A LOT of money And even though immense efforts have been made to curb these costs [from nearly everyone working for free OR incredibly lower rates than they normally would to businesses donating catering to repurposing studio elements to most gear being provided by the school, etc.] there is still a whole mess of expenses that come through:- camera and lighting/grip rental gear
- production design costs (from pills to paint)
- prosthetic arms to be melted!!
- truck rental to haul around all the equipment
- film stock and processing & transferring
- location fees for High School use
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visual FX artist
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post-production costs (from sound design to color grading)
The garnered money from this campaign will not only help recoup some of the costs already put forth, but also the many costs to continue rolling in. [JOY!]
The $6,000 that we're seeking in this campaign doesn't actually cover all of the costs listed above [like I said...films be expensive!]. Luckily I have also applied to "national" Texas grants from the Austin Film Society, as well as dug deep into the personal savings to make this film a reality.
Without all of your generous contributions this film will not reach its full magnitude. From all of the audio and visual designs becoming fully actualized, to having the funds to send it around the world to garner festival and global attention.
Will my film change the world?
The reality is...almost assuredly not.
I do feel though that the subject matter is topical and of importance for people to become all the more aware of. Will this film cause the youth to become less medicated? No. But the hope is that it will at least get people to think and talk about the idea of medicating, especially at such a young age.
If there is anything that I've learned over my years of working within communities it's that one can't change the world, but they can change their community. My hope is that the audiences to this film becomes that community, and thus, that change. However small it may be.
oh yeah, and I hope people also enjoy the movie while they're at it. At the root of it all, it's a film we're making here, no?
~::~
the last film I directed was a documentary about a small Texas town called, "Uncertain"...as you'll see, even in reality I like to construct a world (at least a lil' bit)
