THE STORY
This poetic short drama explores the inner challenges of three young women who are brought together through their search for meaning, identity, and belonging as they make sense of the world through their artistry. By coming together, they begin to navigate some of the most vulnerable aspects of being a young artist and human being––taking the creative risk to go after their dreams and lean into their power and independence. In exploring the power of interdisciplinary expression to share a collaborative story, this project is filled with original poetry, song, and movement.
The Inspiration
This project originates from a student-led organization, Expressive Arts Project, founded and crafted by Jamie Lazan, and including members Rose Stoller and Maayan Amiran. Throughout our college career, Expressive Arts Project brought creatives together, focused on exploring and creating from multidisciplinary art forms to deepen our creative connection. Together, in continued collaboration, we recognized the power of our voices, our unique gifts, and felt safe in leaning into the unknowns and hardships we personally faced. Knowing we were soon to graduate, we yearned to take all that we learned and were present with to the medium of film, with the hope to inspire young individuals discovering who they are in the world...and how to make sense of it.
The Process
We reached out to Lea Pfandler, an award-winning filmmaker and director who is passionate about using visual media to tell a story, provoke thought, and empower emerging artists. Together, we crafted a fictional narrative that brought up many struggles felt by each character. We wanted to reflect the power of community by having our characters come together in safe space to exchange these vulnerable feelings and challenges...and flourish as a result. We wanted to encourage our viewers to lean into their unique talents and gifts, and share that with the world. To best cultivate that message, this film is particularly special in that it is centered and devised from original poetry, music and movement collaboratively crafted by us for the purpose of this film.
The Impact
Our film aims to inspire and connect with young individuals like us who are still discovering who they are and have a passion, a goal, a creation they have yet to put out to the world. From poets to writers, musicians to singers, dancers to actors, and as filmmakers, we are bringing a piece of ourselves into the characters we have created. From the perspective of emerging into the world as professional artists, we are jumping forward beyond our fear to truly live in our passion and speak for ourselves in this film. We created a range of struggles for our characters, cultivating a film that is both relatable and can be deeply felt by many. We hope viewers will see that alone we can do so much, together we can do even more. And further hope that our film inspires young creatives to seek out kindred spirits, to connect and collaborate, as beautiful things can emerge.
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Director's Statement
I am the chameleon, the chameleon is me.
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charging with fire, preying on the mind at sleep.
Bleak eyes scaling sour emotions,
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cheap feet glide across spiky pine coned concrete
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Meet Director & Writer, Lea Pfandler
I got commissioned by three wonderful young artists of SUNY New Paltz who wanted to create a project dear to their hearts that expressed their current inner worlds, dreams, and fears. All three students were ready to graduate and head out into the world, anxious of what this would mean to them. It all came down to the importance and necessity of coming together, the openness to share ones fears and hopes, the willingness to be vulnerable, and to not fear judgment but to express in collaboration with others. Connection is everything. And one of the things I learned from 2020 is that connection and connecting is of utmost importance to us human beings and that art is essential and powerful. It may heal and connect.
This poetic drama expresses just this: the need for others and the importance of coming together, to lean on one another when we most need it, when we most fear it. To tell this visually, my main focus was the framing by squeezing the young artist’s in their isolation and fear into a 4:3 frame to convey their narrow reality and releasing them into a 16:9 frame to free them up into their collaborative dreamworld. Furthermore, I wanted to give each character their own visual voice and frame in the real world. Bella, the musician, is constantly cornered within the frame, feeling stuck. Sarah, the writer, lives in her own head and world, remains in close ups, feeling isolated from the rest, and Josephine, the dancer, is out of touch with herself and her identity and therefore is lost in the wide shot. The original song and poetry created by Jamie Lazan and Rose Stoller guides us through the whole film. It was a fascinating and inspiring process working with these three young individual artists and their unique artistic talents and passions. I’m so grateful for them and the whole team for making this collaboration possible. It is definitely a film that belongs to the whole team. I’m thankful the Chameleon Spoke so freely during this process. May we all bloom and blossom in collaboration and love.