Jenevieve, Isabella, and I hoped to create a film about how one aspect of a girl's life sets her off to imagine herself as a horrible person willing to go so far as murder. We also wanted to add a twist, though where hat aspect, the mother, turns the tables on the girl. We wanted a style with an emphasis on expression and action rather than dialogue. It is meant for an audience more interested in the journey than the outcome, but still enjoys a surprise at the end, which is also why I feel it was a good idea.
Word Count: 100
Commentary
I was the writer, editor, and co-sound designer/editor. I had these roles in preproduction and postproduction because I was absent for the production aspect.
Challenges as a writer were coming up with a plausible story because our original idea involved a girl hearing voices that tell the girl to kill. I was inspired by “Black Swan” to write that version. I thought it was really interesting how she was overcome by her evil side. However, there was no motivation behind it in our version. Then I brought Jenevieve and Isabella with me back to the drawing board. In my original treatment, there was a scene including the mother. We were reminded of “Black Swan” and Nina’s increasingly bad relationship with her mother, so we decided to use that as a basis. The only challenge I found with the 2-column script was that I didn’t put enough shots in the dream sequences to carry out the actions in a more fluidly. Luckily, Jenevieve and Isabella improvised on those parts.
The most troublesome things I had to work with as an editor were some shots where the tripod can be seen. Those two tripod shots just happened to be ones where there was only one take. The first one is of Jenevieve's mom (mother) drinking the water with the crushed pills. I couldn't do anything about that one, so it is just standing very obviously in the background for about 3 seconds.
The next one I just cut out. It not only showed the tripod, but Jenevieve's brother, who played toxic exposure detective in the last scene, was sitting on the couch watching television. This was a shot when Marie ran to the garage door when she heard the mother coming. It was a match-action cut of the front of Marie heading toward the door to the back of Marie heading toward the door (which was the messed-up shot). I just cut out the latter and added the sound of a door closing in order for people to understand. I also had a little trouble with the last scene because of the shots I had available. For most of the takes, the potential murder weapons weren't even on the table, so I only had a couple of shots to use. Also, the shots of Marie I had didn't always match with each other. I just had to settle with the full shot that zooms in, but it went too fast so I slowed it down. The I cut to the mother, I cut back to a close up of Marie, and then I cut to a close up of the mother. 
As a sound designer/editor, I had challenges with what music should go where because we had several selections, but we weren't sure if we should have some sort of leitmotif for Marie. In the editing process, I decided to create a piano composition from garage band for the reality scenes and eerie music for the dream scenes. Another problem I had was with the knife scene. In our script, evil mother is supposed to be chatting on the phone as off-screen sound that Marie is heading toward. When I heard mother's laugh in the raw footage, I thought it sounded creepy and I couldn't make it sound like diegetic noise in a phone conversation since it was just the laugh by itself, so I just added the sound of a phone ringing (findsounds.com) a few seconds before the laugh to make it sound a little less random. However, this laugh was useful as non-diegetic noise during the last shot of the film, a closeup of the mother smiling at Marie. One last challenge was with the tripod shot that I cut out when Marie is heading towards the garage door. I just solved this by fading to black and introducing the next scene. Another major issue was that Jenevieve and Isabella had trouble capturing the dialogue in the first scene. I had to use the gain effect on Final Cut Pro so that one could hear what Marie and evil mother are saying, but there is a lot of distracting static for those few seconds.
Problems for the film as a whole had to do with the production. First of all, I couldn't be at our location (Jenevieve's house) to help with anything, such as clarifying anything in the script that Jenevieve or Isabella didn't understand. This was resolved by interpreting the shots in their own way. We also had trouble finding an actor to be the father at the last minute because he was originally supposed to be Jenevieve's uncle, who doesn't have an accent. I worked out fine with Jenevieve's dad, though.
The person who played the step mother had trouble saying her lines because of her accent. She also had difficulties portraying the evil mother because she is normally very cheerful and kind.
The opening shots are a mysterious introduction to what the film will be about.
The dialogue has a lot of static. The song selection for the scene is solemn, which is fitting for the girl sitting down. The sound of the door closing does not sound very realistic. The sound effect and fade out/fade in transition is fitting, and the black and white effect is good for separating reality and dream. 
Jump cuts help the time pass more quickly in the scene with the pills, but some of the shots are too long and should be captured from different angles. 
The tripod in the shot is distracting from the point of the shot-- that the mother is about to accidentally overdose on her medication. The silhouette of the girl at the sink is effective in expressing her deep thought about whether she really matters to her mother-- blacking her out is like making her seem like she's becoming the evil one and it's dramatic. 
The change in music along with the girl's expression helps get across what she is thinking about. The acting is good because she is twirling the knife in her hand as she ponders. The raising of the knife in her hand is unrealistic, however. 
The creaking is an interesting effect to add to the anxiety. 
The shadow on the wall is dramatic, but the phone ringing takes away from it. 
The laugh sounds awkward for the scene. The motion of the girl when she puts the knife on the table works well with the music because it emphasizes what the girl is planning on doing.
The zooming in on the washing machine and its sound is hypnotic and emphasizes that the girl is in thought.
When the girl wraps the scarf around her hand and glances up the stairs is good acting because it represents that she is becoming the evil one. 
The dark lighting on her face represents how she is unrecognizable from how she appeared to be in the first scene. 
It is unrealistic that the mother would be standing doing nothing as the girl approaches. 
There is good acting when we see a glimpse of the girl's hand outstretched beside the laundry basket, as well as when she picks up the scarf and just holds it before finally leaving the room because it represents her intensity about the situation.
The laugh is effective in expressing the mother's truly wicked ways.
Word Count: 1,239
Supporting Evidence
