Portfolio Project 2021: Film Topic Ideas

What’s this thing about?

Now that I have an idea of which project I’m doing this is the fun but stressful part, figuring out a topic for the film. I figured since I was deciphering between the music promotion and the film promotion options I could have the best of both worlds and add musical elements to my film’s plot. 

I had the idea of the main character of my film being a girl that was a music producer that had autism but was adamant about keeping her diagnosis hidden. 

I spoke about this idea with Mrs. Stoklosa on Friday and she had similar concerns that I did. Portraying a mental disorder is hard and autism is especially hard because it’s easy to convey it incorrectly. I definitely have no intentions of mocking or misrepresenting the autistic community and that was my biggest concern as well, accurately portraying autism. I wouldn’t want to offend anyone by having a character “act autistic”, I wouldn’t be comfortable doing so. It’s a spectrum and individuals with a disability of any kind should not be labeled by their disability or portrayed in one particular way for easy identification in media productions but I digress.

After leaving the autism idea behind I thought about maybe having the main character have a mental disorder that is more feasible to depict like OCD. Mrs. Stoklosa asked a really good question. That question being “why does the main character have to have a mental disorder?” She brought up an excellent point! I was thinking of challenges and conflicts that a mental disorder could potentially bring into the main character’s life to spice up the plot but using a mental disorder isn’t the only way to do this. So instead of trying to convey mental illness in my film through the main character, I’m going to convey gender inequality and it’s role in society. 

Mental illness is a major aspect in many people’s lives and is apart of their stories but for this project it would make much more sense for me to capture the concept of gender equality. I know that with me choosing to focus on the topic of gender equality, specifically regarding women, I’ll be able to convey the topic more accurately.