On these films I did as much as I could. I wrote the scripts for these films, did all the planning work. I directed and even shot parts of these films myself when crew grew sparse, and edited them front to back, every scene, every audio clip, every color graded frame. As I wrote, produced and threw these films onto the internet, I had a recurring issue that kept cropping up in my mind, something that's plagued me since around thirteen years old. A deep uncertainty with the life I was leading. It wasn't until late 2019, at seventeen, surrounded by a whole bunch of supportive people, that I finally accepted that I was struggling with my gender identity, and that I am most probably a transgender woman.

Coming to this realization was nothing but terrifying however. For a long while I felt nothing but dread, before being able to feel an ounce of solace in it. So many fears raced through my head, and after finally coming out to my close friends, I decided to release these pent up fears into a new film script.

I began writing this about half way through the January of 2020, and had knocked out a first draft by the beginning of February. I did a read through with two of my friends, Tom and Percy. I thought that I should buff it up with sub plots and development for the other characters, but they disagreed and this made me happy because deep down I wanted to keep the story focussed on my main character Charlie.

Gecko is a short film that focusses around life for Charlie, after coming out as a transgender teenager in her British suburban lifestyle. It is written based partly off of my experiences, but mainly my fears of what life after coming out would be like, the affects it would have on my friendships, relationships and every day life in general. I have a strong understanding of what it means to be transgender because, well, I am. I know all the intricacies of living this way.

 

After years of work, I am well adversed in the short film format. As mentioned before, I wrote, directed and edited three before this, each ranging between 10 and 15 minutes, but this script is a lot more of a challenge, with the first draft alone sitting at 40 pages. Now, if we go by the typical one page is a minute rule, this means I'm going to be producing a 40 minute film, which in all honesty, I believe I'm prepared to do. When shooting my other films, I liked to do at least two scenes a day to keep things moving, and with the locations in this film I believe I could do that again. Of course, I've given myself a lot of time on the gantt chart to shoot, as even though I have the ability to leave college whenever I need to shoot, but I have to work around the timetables of the people I have casted. Working with crew is not a concern for me. I want to use the same group of people that I've been making films with for years now, as I know that with them I can work very well. Blaise Jones and Jake O'Flynn helped me shoot all of A Walk In The Woods, and we worked together tremendously. My communication skills with crew is great, and because I've worked with these people so much, it's unlikely we'd get side tracked and the work will slip. I also want to work with these people simply because they're some of the first people I opened up to about my struggles with gender identity, so working with them on a film like this will just feel right. One thing that concerns me though is working with the actors. I'm not using my usual cast members on this one, so these are new people I'll have to figure out the kinks with on how to get a good and effective performance out of. One of them, April Bowler, is also a non-actor, but as a director, one of my jobs is to get a good performance out of people. I'm not doing any Stanley Kubrick stuff don't worry, but this will give me a good opportunity to flex my director muscles in an area I'm not too adversed in.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

I've noticed that there really aren't many films that tell the stories of transgender people, and the films that try are commonly faced with a lot of backlash, for a multitude of reasons. There are some diamonds in the rough that I have been told about though, such as 2015's "Tangerine" which I am yet to give a watch. I'll even watch the borderline offensive ones, such as The Danish Girl, just to gather an idea of why it didn't work. The YouTube scene however is littered with films exploring the subject, mind you, but with the same old shallow, undeveloped perspective.

​

Throughout the process of making this film, I'm going to be keeping a production diary, to document any issues I come across, but mainly just to document the making of this film. As I go, I will compare what I produce to my original aims and overall vision, to see where I am going wrong and where I am going right. This will help me reflect in the end as well, and evaluate what went wrong, what went well, and write an effective and whole evaluation. 

 

I aim to make a film that portrays a more realistic take written from my own personal experience, that will shine more light onto what being transgender really means. Growing up, I hardly knew what a Transgender person was. Information was sparse if available at all, and the short films I watched are fear mongering and tragic, with an unrealistic depiction of the real world. I wish to show kids going through the same as I did, that it is not all doom and gloom. Not everyone hates you for who you are. I want to show a realistic world, and just prepare kids and teenagers for what they might have to endure after coming out.