Black Mirror

For our first university project, we were tasked with creating a short, one-minute poetic film. When choosing a poem to visualise in film, Black Mirror by Joseph Mapfeka stood out to us as the meaning of its powerful yet non-specific imagery (‘a soulless void that resembles you’, ‘you cradle it with cold care’) could be interpreted in several ways. After much deliberation and consultation with our group, we decided that an interpretation of the lived experience of someone with gender dysphoria — as an internal battle (‘darkness’) leaks into one’s social and personal life — would be the most visually and narratively impactful.

The project provided us with an opportunity to develop and demonstrate our technical and creative abilities in lighting, where we collaborated with another filmmaker (who also voiced the piece) to create split lighting and other colour effects which enhance the visual interest and meaning of the piece; cinematography, where we had to balance the technical limitations of the camera recording in dark environments with our creative vision to create the best image; and editing, where we layered clip effects in Premiere Pro to create subtle distortion effects which emphasise the protagonist’s sense of discomfort with themselves and the world around them.

We utilised recognisable LGBTQ+ lighting effects (blue, pink, and white ‘trans’ and split pink and blue ‘bisexual’ lighting) and symbols such as the IKEA Blåhaj plush shark, trans flag, and ‘dysphoria hoodie’ to signify that the protagonist is trans. This allowed us to convey the meaning of the interpretation — imparting an impression of the complex experience of gender dysphoria — to be conveyed in under a minute.

The film was shown at a Sheffield Hallam joint LGBTQ+ and Film Society queer screening event at the Showroom Cinema during a Transforming Cinema event, which highlighted films created by LGBTQ+ artists. We were very pleased with how the film turned out, and it received praise as being a rare, authentic portrayal of an important queer issue.