Let's Talk

     I will be honest, it's Spring Break and my motivation to work on this project is not at high as it was a couple of days ago when I filmed. Nevertheless, I have to keep going.

     I have been watching the clips and for the most part, I am completely happy with what I have accomplished in terms of quality, though I haven't checked the audio recordings yet in fear that they may not be perfect. But I want to address something that I don't think I've addressed at all, and if I have it was very briefly.

     When casting Kailynn as my main character, I did not know what I wanted my story to be about. I quickly decided on drama and then decided that I would incorporate Kailynn's Puerto Rican heritage into it. However, when it came time to actually write the script, my mind went blank. I did not know what to write in general much less how to incorporate her ethnicity into it.

     I re-wrote the script about three times until I was happy and it ended up being the one I used. Truthfully, I simply could not think of a story where her ethnicity would be relevant. I decided to completely give up on that idea. I do not want to have diversity for the sake of diversity. I thought it would be unfair if I jut threw the fact that she was Puerto Rican into the story without giving anything else to it. I refuse to have a story in which a character's ethnicity is only mentioned to be diverse. If I was going to mention her ethnicity, it would be because it was relevant to the story.

     Hispanic cultures are so rich that I felt as though just mentioning Puerto Rico and leaving it like that would be somewhat disrespectful. As someone who is Mexican, I know I would feel a little bit offended if I saw a very Americanized character in a film who was claiming to be Mexican. Basically, if I couldn't do it the right way that I wanted to do it, I would not do it at all.

     Had I had more time for this project, maybe the story would be different. For now though, I am happy with what I wrote. I would love to film something with more diversity and culture in the future, where I can actually take my time to research the culture I will be writing about and filming, so I can deliver a respectful and satisfying result.