Patellar Tendininitis
The summer before junior year was pretty awful.
At the beginning of summer, I was diagnosed with patellar tendinitis. Not only did I lose the experience of playing basketball, but I also lost the feeling that came with being part of a team. One month later, the only boy I could ever fully trust died: my dog, Max. His chubby stomach would no longer provide my head a pillow, I would never get to hear him bark ever again, and I had nothing to play with when I came home. And to top it off, two weeks later, my dad cheated on my mom. I didn’t tell anyone, not even my best friend, and feelings of resentment and anger were just bottled up inside me, making me feel alone.
I felt lost.
So I tried to cope in different ways.
I began dieting, but realized I loved food too much to starve myself. So then I started binging. No, not on food, on TV. I forced myself to watch the worst shows of all time, and by the time I hit rock bottom, I had watched every season of the Kardashians. Yeah, I went there.
But I realized that dieting and watching these shows didn’t make me feel any better, they actually made me feel worse.
At that point, I felt not only lost but empty and utterly bored.
Fast forward to the first day of Junior year. I needed one more visual arts credit, so I switched into the Film A class. The first assignment was to pitch three short film ideas to the class, and let them decide which we would work on for the semester. I pitched my three ideas, and the class picked the story of Nina, a young girl who investigates the murder of her dead stuffed animal.
I worked on my little movie idea like there was no tomorrow. I struggled to learn how to white balance and to use Final Cut Pro. I worked on color correcting during my free periods, stayed up all night making new edits of my film and kept annoying my poor teacher by emailing every day with new questions. My DP, actors, and I worked together each day to create the best version of my film. I was constantly occupied, enough so that my mom didn’t even ask me to run errands for her anymore. Score.
Once my film was completed, my teacher emailed to ask if she could screen my film at a school-wide assembly. I emailed her saying “Yes!!” (with two exclamation marks). But what I was really thinking was, “Dear God, why me? I don’t want to do this, people are going to hate it. Thanks a lot” (no exclamation mark).
But at the screening a miracle happened. They smiled. They laughed. They even clapped! My lack of confidence was banished by the time my film ended. I had made something that not only made me happy, but made others happy too. A cheesy smile was plastered on my face for the next two weeks.
But over the next couple weeks something else started to happen.
People in my film class began asking how I came up with my film idea. At the time, my answer was, “I don’t know” or “Um, I like stuffed animals?” But then I showed my film to my sister. Once it ended, she started crying. She said, “I’m so sorry you had to go through through these things. It’s too early.” At first, I didn’t really understand why my film made her say that. But then I realized that she saw something I originally hadn’t.
On the surface, the film is about a teenager named Nina who loses her beloved stuffed animal, Jimmy, only to find out her mother stole it to teach Nina a lesson in growing up. But my sister saw my film as kind of a distorted life story. It wasn’t just about having weird connections with inanimate objects, it was about losing something/someone you love then losing the trust of a parent. I realized that the loss of Jimmy in the story represented the loss of my dog and that Nina’s mother stealing the stuffed animal, which led to a lack of trust, represented the loss of trust I felt after my dad cheated on my mom. I may have thought that I was over my resentment and anger toward my dad, but I wasn’t. And, if I’m being honest, I’m still not. But, that anger and resentment towards my dad that pushed me to come up with this film showed me that I wasn’t alone because my sister was feeling the same thing. Even though we are 19 years apart, we unbottled our resentment together and opened up to each other.
Not only did this little movie idea lead me to this understanding, but I also had a realization about filmmaking.
Even though my film was comedic, it showed a hidden side of my feelings, and ultimately gave me an outlet that allowed me to show my feelings in an indirect, but meaningful way. And that’s why I love comedy. It’s not just about the laughs and slapstick jokes that makes the audience laugh, but it’s also about the relief creating the story gives. If I created a dramatic film about the lose of a loved one, I would have given my film teacher the hesitant yes I gave her. I would have just straight out said no. The idea of having a hidden side to my film that no one would see because they would be too busy laughing, gave me comfort.