The Making of Illusory Persona

Illusory Persona was heavily inspired, thematically, by the "cyberpunk" science fiction movement that burst onto the literary scene in the early- to mid-1980s. I was really into that at the time. (At one point Stewart is seen reading a copy of Burning Chrome, William Gibson's collection of cyberpunk short stories - including Johnny Mnemonic, basically recognized as the first cyberpunk story.) Terry Gilliam's Brazil was a big inspiration, too.

Visually, well... there's not a lot you can do with a student film, in terms of massive sets and all. I set the story in a university residence in part cause it was easier to do (what with a super-tight budget, we just shot in our res'); but also because I was a student myself, and I was thinking about the world from that perspective. Setting the story in a university was a way to "write what I know". For the last half - which occurs entirely in a residence room - we took over one of our lounges; converting it into a bedroom set for a couple weeks. (A university official happened to be visiting our residence once when he saw what appeared to be a complete bedroom moved by some errant student into the lounge. It was not good.)

Most of my focus in Illusory Persona was to learn about "mis-en-scene" elements - framing and composition, camera movement, lighting. That's pretty typical of a lot of film students; and you gotta do that sooner or later in film (though some directors remain in that element - "with the crew instead of actors" so to speak). I broke the rules with the lighting. There are scenes where the "bad guys" are giving long spiels of dialogue while backlit - a big no-no back then, because the faces are so faintly lit you can barely see them.

I was really pushing the "latitude" of the film, as it's called - the depth of contrast. (Latitude is also a very definitive term here. In typical film - or at least the film we were using - you have a latitude of 7 f-stops: an element that is exposed 3.5 stops above "correct" exposure goes totally white; below 3.5 stops and it goes totally black. The faces of the villains were exposed at 3 or 3.5 stops under - just barely visible. Actually, it's doubtful you'll be able to see the subtlety of contrast on your web-browser anyway; you need to see the real 16mm film to get the full effect. Also, these screenshots are captured from a video dupe. Yuck.) At the time I was criticized by my film profs; today it would probably be more accepted (the "rules" are less rigidly held-to now). However, I liked the ominous unfeeling look this back-lighting gave the villains - it projected a central quality of evil: that it cannot be reasoned with. Despite breaking the rules - or maybe because of it - people complemented me on those shots.

The major fallback of this short was the acting. This is partly due to the subject matter: the main character is supposed to be emotionally dull and wooden - uncomfortable with human contact, unaware of his feelings. This was fine from an objective standpoint, but it didn't make for the best cinema. In retrospect I should have emotionally charged up the performances across the board - particularly with that dull character of Stewart - to allow things to come across better on film. The little fight scene at the end, though, seems pretty emotionally authentic. (And of course, none of the actors were real actors - just friends who fit the parts a little.) When I did my next film - One More Secret - I focused a LOT more on the performances (and I believe it paid off then).

Nevertheless, the film has something real to say - even (especially?) today. When Illusory Persona was shown at the end-of-year screening - in an auditorium of 400 people - they screamed their applause. That was one of the best moments of my life.