Prathithi Nellaiappan Week 15: Nothing, Except Everything
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| nothing, except everything. |
A year ago, I watched a short film called “nothing, except everything” which is by far my favorite thing on the internet. I have watched it multiple times and each time I love it more (go watch it right now). It was directed by Wesley Wang in his senior year of high school. He created a team of 30-40 people and decided to capture the essence of his teenage years in video format for the viewers. In exactly 12 minutes and 50 seconds, he is able to easily explain the feelings of happiness, loss, euphoria, and frustration that come with being a senior in high school. The film focuses on how fickle time can be and how memories can fade. Wang also discusses how each moment in high school will be something we will remember with warmth and happiness in years to come. Honestly, the way he conveys these topics using meaningful filmography gave me a whole new respect for the arts. I love this film so much that I set a reminder on my phone for 1/1/2025 at 8:00 AM to rewatch the film. I am betting that I will be able to resonate with the film even more when I am in that stage of life.
After watching this video a couple of times, I suddenly felt the urge to film my senior year and try my hand at filmography. There was one small problem: I have no knowledge of filmography. I don't know anything about the process and I don't even know where to start. Having lost hope of creating anything of the same quality as Wang, I gave up.
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| When I Fly Towards You |
Months later, I watched a kdrama called When I Fly Towards You in which the main character carries her digital camera around and films her high school life. Years later, she reminisces the sweet times she had in school with her friends. The videos she takes are not professional at all, in fact, they are quite shaky and are done with an older digital camera. For me, the blurry aesthetic of older cameras makes the videos even more appealing.
After seeing this, I began to revisit my idea. I still haven’t decided if I will follow through with it since it would be a difficult feat to make a good video. I would have to sort through a year of footage to edit it and remembering to film during fun moments will likely be a struggle. Either way, I think I’ll want to have a record of my life during this time so that I can revisit these memories later on. Hopefully, by June of 2025, I’ll have a completed video that documents the most fun times of senior year!
Hi Prathithti! I really like the idea of documenting my senior year through video but knowing me, I find that I don't really get the urge to film things usually. I prefer to take pictures so hopefully my camera roll will be filled with pictures from senior year next year! I also watched When I Fly Towards You and I thought that the way the characters were able to look back on everything they recorded when they were in high school as adults was so cute. I'm not really sure that I would have wanted to record all of high school because these past years haven't been the most memorable in terms of the amount of fun I've had (it's mostly been me doing homework, sleeping, and sitting in my room all day). Hopefully senior year will be worth documenting. I will make sure to check out "nothing, except everything" after this!
ReplyDeleteHi Prathithi! Your blog immediately caught my attention because just a few weeks ago, one of my friends sent me this exact short film. I remember when I watched this for the first time, I didn't expect it to be as good as it actually was. Especially with our senior year coming up, as you mentioned, it definitely incited mixed feelings in my head about my future. The way in which you described these feelings as being that of "happiness, loss, euphoria, and frustration" are undeniably the closest to what I may perhaps be feeling around this time next year. On top of all of this, your blog also served as a reminder for me to film all my important moments from senior year. I hope I am able to get some good flicks so that a year from now when we will be off to college, I can have something to remind myself of my high school experience. Thank you for your blog!
ReplyDeleteI liked the overall structure of your blog, as it had short, easy-to-read paragraphs, and a fulfilling conclusion. Reading your blog reminded me that we will all be seniors very soon and that, a year from now, we will never be able to experience school with each other again. It seems absurd to say that I will never be able to see many of my classmates, some of whom I have been in school with ever since kindergarten, again. I therefore find the idea of creating a short video about the memories that we have shared together in high school very appealing, considering that it would be a way for us to relive the high school experience whenever we want. I agree that the fact that you have little filmography experience is irrelevant in this scenario; the point of the video is to simply be able to look back on your high school memories, regardless of whether it is well-edited or seems visually appealing. In fact, I think that the less filmography experience you have, the more natural the video will look anyways. I hope you do have a completed video by June 2025 about the exciting moments of senior year, and I look forward to seeing it.
ReplyDeletePrathithi, he definitely did blow my goddamn mind because the number I picked was 7! Though, after learning that rather than the 10% that I expected, the percentage of people that choose 7 is actually 33%, it did become a little less shocking. The video was an extremely interesting watch, and I can definitely understand your “love [for] this film” and the need to “set a reminder on [your] phone for 1/1/2025 at 8:00 AM to rewatch the film.” It did tackle a number of emotions in such a short time, but I think you’re right in that it’s not necessarily solely the work of advanced filmography techniques. Instead, it’s more of the story he tells and the memories he actually depicts that evoke those emotions of “happiness, loss, euphoria, and frustration.” With this in mind, I think the video that you’re planning on making will be equally as emotional and impactful, especially when you’re the one rewatching it. It’s honestly a really great idea, and the thought of being able to re-experience senior year through a video that captures it all makes me want to try my hand at a video too. Overall, this was quite interesting, thank you!
ReplyDeletePrathithi I think you've really hit something that I'm really scared of, and that's high school coming to an end for all of us, especially since I'm scared I'll lose contact with people I really enjoy being around and really want to still be friends with even throughout college. I'll be watching the video you linked after finishing up the rest of my blog comments right now (please save me) and I really hope that you will go through with your plan to film your senior year, I would really look forward to being able to see that sort of thing, and maybe I want to do that too, it seems really interesting to me and really novel since in the future I could look back on it and think about how nice everything was in high school and not how hectic it is in college. Now even though seeing my brother being able to still hang out with his old high school friends on a regular basis has assuaged my fear of high school ending a bit, I still feel this random sense of sadness that I can't be with the people I want to be around the most during college. Also if you ever do end up filming anything I'd love to be a part of it (I swear I'm a good camera man) and I really wanna be able to remember our friendship too since I really like having you as a friend. Hopefully before we graduate next year you can have a perfect film of your high school senior year, and hopefully we never lose contact with each other!
ReplyDeleteHi Prathithi! I watched this exact short film literally like a month ago, and it hit so deep. As much as I say I can't wait for high school to be over, it's a lie. The reality is, I really just don't want to grow up. I'm really scared about having to start all over again in a new school and make new friends and have a new life that I can't share with my old, favorite people. And no matter how many pictures and videos I take, I won't ever be able to keep the feelings I felt at a certain time forever. I honestly regret not asking people for pictures and things last year and the year before. I really wish that I could make those cute little rewinds and have things to watch as I grow older, but I've learned from my mistakes. Starting this summer, I'm dragging my mom's old Sony camera from literally 2000 around with me everywhere. I'm taking pictures of everyone and everything I see just because I want to. I want to be able to look back on senior year in like 5 years and relive every single day. It feels so strange to already be at this point of time where we're going to start writing our apps and start finding colleges. A year from today exactly, we'll have committed to a school. It's really bittersweet.
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