Social Media and Website

 Here's the Instagram account: 

@lonelyashortfilmbyjirehstokes

Here's the Website: 
stokes25school.wixsite.com/website

Key Art

Official Poster:
Film Festival Promo Card:

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Critical Reflection

 Critical Reflection:

The dramatic experimental short film that is “Lonely.” is about the struggle of social anxiety that causes the lonesome of main character Tiren from the Outsiders. Throughout the piece there are themes of loneliness, self-critique, low self esteem as well as the comfort found in nostalgia. Ultimately the piece is hardly developed; the attempt to be something more is there but not expanded on. 

The film pertains to its genre as experimental by the disconnected imagery of the water droplets and the parallel scenes of watching movies. The drama convention is shown by the broad story of Tiren rejecting social interaction with  the Outsider. This distinctive style of editing to be an experimental drama was supported by the research covering the short film Catharsis and the style of Moonlight (2016). Both are examples that were used in the culmination of the film's configuration and its Key Art. Differing in topic and style they both invoke different stories that made them worthy sources. While Moonlight would have moments that represent reality similarly, there were clear titles that moved the story along by acts. “Lonely.” contradicts this by only using shots of running water to move the story. Catharsis, on the other hand, represented tone through the lighting and filters of the main character, which heavily influenced the blue color representing loneliness throughout the film. Although these are both different standards of an experimental film, the beauty that these were each shot with greatly succeeded the camerawork in “Lonely.” Reasonably so, there are mistakes in continuity and confusion of themes that can go unnoticed without the context of the short-film. 

From the research about the genre of experimental film and its history a major theme that was perpetuated was the heart of film; the original intentions of a creator. Instead of presenting a story with a direct focus on the story and its characters, experimental films had been made so that the audience was forced to interpret this. In the extreme case of Andy Warhol’s Empire (1965) this silent film featured nearly eight hours of a still shot of the Empire state building. According to typical film standards this would be considered boring and uninspired but the very community surrounding the film of the Avant-Gard idolizes the expression of the artist rather than the story itself. The research done on the idols of this genre were not as thorough as it could have been, being unfocused and unlearned was the director of this piece considering there isn’t any signs of growth from that understanding what technical techniques and devices were used to make their work notable. 

The community is focused on the truth to the genre and the artist behind it rather than the actual coherence of the film. Thus creatively attracting the niche community for the film itself. To reach said community an Instagram and website were used to promote the film through the engaging nature of being cryptic. By using captions with strange spelling conventions, and hashtags of interest  the target audience of fellow creators are brought to support and engage with the film. Due to limited time and resources there is a lack of engagement in anything other than that. The lack of posts and attempts to reach out were limited because of the size of the producing team itself. Nonetheless the lack of engagement was less than acceptable for such a film that required heavy interaction with the community. 

In the editing of the short film the added tints and vignettes to the images protected the aim for loneliness and subsequently negative emotion. A trait used in Catharsis, is typically done naturally with lighting and team members to aid in the vision the director has set. This short film did no such thing. Instead it artificially crafted an image to fit the theme and used unoriginal methods to film; which is a null reaction to the research that was done beforehand. According to the blog a significant amount of time went into research and navigation for the project but no results about whether the fruits of their labor was even worth it. 

Even with the artificial blue the film doesn’t lack in upholding a set color scheme. Blues, whites, and blacks with the commanding font of Agency FB the film has been marketed (poorly) to show what makes this recognizable. Now whether the truth behind how significant those images are is also sub-par to the image this film could have had. The mask’s use to target an audience of young adults that are more inclined to react to a set symbol is useful but that alone doesn’t support the true meat of the film. 

The image that “Lonely.’s” brand was setting up to portray was that through a common relatability, especially affected by quarantine, would give rise to a community that liked to be mysterious and poetic while still caring for one another. Of course in the wake of its failure the genre has lost its uniqueness of being more accepting than typical avant-garde-groups.  The story itself does defy the typical genre standards by allowing the heavy concepts to be rounded up in a conclusion that doesn’t feature a happy-ending. As well as the striking imagery hinting at something more violent for an issue that is usually seen as docile discomfort. The short film did rely and move to meet the goal of being disorienting but did retain a story like Moonlight while still remaining extremely disorienting. This nature of the film gives way to the other nuances of the film like the main actor. 

With no effect on the story and technical limitations the same person who played the actor was the director, the producer, lighting manager, ie the whole crew (except for that one other actress) The boxes of a woman of color doing all those things could be argued to promote diversity in a wider sphere but standing alone it means nothing and does nothing to add to the discussion and betterment of heavily oppressed groups. 

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Lonely. (A short film by Jireh Stokes)

Here Ya Go. It's too big to post directly and for the theatrical release I plan to upload it along with all my recent products to my You tube channel  sometime this month. Please let me know what you think I'm eager for some feedback. 

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The Short Film | Entire Folder

 Here

Distorting Voices| An Outsider’s Call

Something I haven’t really elaborated on the Outsider is their voice. I plan to make this a major point of alienation for the viewer and Tiren; the goal is something scary. Thanks to the feature of the mask that covers the majority of the actor’s mouth a lot of these voices will be recorded separately from the ones on set. This is a lot more helpful especially without specialized equipment and microphones specifically meant for recording 

To help with editing this I found this video which explained how exactly you can make these changes to a voice. I appreciated the really quick edit rather than something longer. With the due date approaching and still with plenty of filming needing to be done, time is of the essence. 

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Looking Like Moonlight>

Having watched Moonlight (2016) and seen the poster plenty of places before, the color scheme and style is somewhat similar (loosely, I know). Now the color scheme already is quite similar to the key art but without the different stages being shown at the same time. This wouldn’t be ideal for my design because of the story of Lonely. Is an experimental genre it isn’t as drama focused or specifically displaying the storyline of Chiron’s growth as a gay black man. Where as Tiren is more along the lines of being regressive and retreating back within the safety found in familiarity. I just wanted to point this out as the due date comes closer; wanted to keep in touch with what I’m doing for the Key Art.

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