Aims and Intensions

Aims and Intensions

For my practical piece I made a short film that highlighted the vulnerabilities women can feel on a daily basis, in this case when walking alone at night. This idea was inspired by the short film ‘Slap’ by Nick Rowland, which follows the story of a man who is struggling to confront his true nature whist being dominated by masculine expectation. This touched me as I felt that I began to understand the internal struggle this man was facing, and the damage society has done him. After watching this I was set on creating a short film that would aim to educate others on daily struggles that one may not see. I remembered an article I had read about what women would do if men weren’t allowed out at night; many of the responses highlighted that women would feel far safer and would be more outgoing. This made me question why many women feel this way and related it to my own experiences. What I came to realise was that most of the time men don’t realise that they are appearing intimidating. As a woman I find that I read a lot into a look or a car passing with loud music. This made me want to investigate this in my short film as I wanted people to understand what goes on in a person’s head when they feel vulnerable, no matter who you are. It was important to me not to villainise men, instead I wanted to show the assumptions we make in our minds when scared. I wanted a viewer to sympathise with the girl and with that become far more self-aware.