[SHORT FILM] Happy Girl (by Jensen McRae)

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Description

This short film is my final project/thesis for my video production class. None of the music is owned by me, all credits are to Jensen McRae.
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It's my last semester of college and it felt fitting to film something that somewhat encapsulated the emotions I felt as I approached graduation. This song came to me as a recommendation from my friend (the very same one in this video, Jackson!) and I immediately fell in love. It expressed the emotions I was feeling in a way that was so poignant and beautiful and I knew I wanted to use it to help create this film of someone who is trying to be a Happy Girl.

Later when doing some research on how to structure this video, I discovered that Jensen actually wrote this song during a similar point of time in her life. This was completely unintentional and yet that made it that much more meaningful because I was able to feel the emotions she was trying to convey.

When filming and editing this video, I had so much help from my friends and I'd like to shout them out here:
- I'd like to thank my friends Angie, Nikki, Elbren, Jonathan, and David who took time out of their nights to help act and film this party scene. Bryan, thank you for being DP for the night and making the party scene I invisioned come to life
- I'd also like to thank Bouse for letting me throw confetti all over their living room to make this scene work.
- I also wanted to thank David and John for walking around campus with me to shoot all the shots of me walking.
- And of course, I want to thank Jackson for helping me create the script for our conversation, filming the parts of me walking around the city outside of campus, and letting me use his house for the final part of this film. If it wasn't for your amazing music talents and taste, this video would not have happened.


This film is definitely not perfect and I still have so much to learn, but I am proud of how it turned out and I am so grateful I have such amazing friends that would help me make this film come to life. Thank you all so so much.