Assignment 3
The Breakthrough is a short film about creative recovery: what it means to return after a setback, and to move from fear and perfectionism back into genuine presence. As writer‑director, I draw on personal experiences within Raygun and our collective journey of coming back after injury and emotional exhaustion. The film translates those real dynamics into a focused narrative about one breaker’s first step back into the cypher.
The story follows an aspiring bgirl Mei as she battles her fears of not belonging to the existing breaking scene. She vigorously trains outside of the cypher, convinced that she is not good enough to join. Her mentor Andy, carrying his own scars from chasing perfection and trying to prove himself, signs them both up for a battle then drags her to an empty parking lot to dance without any audience. Shifting her focus from validation to feeling the music, Mei gradually loosens up. In the battle, she stumbles, freezes, then remembers Andy’s “then unfreeze”, recovers, and finishes her round. She doesn’t make it into the next round, but chooses to re-enter the circle and finally claiming her space as a breaker.
As the scriptwriter, I focused on the emotional logic of recovery instead of competition success. The plot deliberately withholds the success of making through the preliminary rounds as Mei’s breakthrough is internal; she accepts not being perfect and still claims her space, responding to failure. When she stumbles and freezes, she remembers what her mentor said about unfreezing, and chose to finish her round. That decision embodies the film’s core theme: reclaiming agency by moving through imperfection instead of waiting for it to disappear.
As director, I prioritised authenticity above polished lines, and with reliance on visual language, echos our shared experience of returning with Raygun after breaks and injuries. The training corridors feel narrow and tight, with the camera focusing on Mei’s failure and contrasting the bigger scene behind. This reflects the claustrophobia of self-critique. The parking lot is more open, imperfect, and a little ugly, but also where Mei starts to actually enjoy herself without the fear of judgment. That space parallels the less glamorous studios and late‑night sessions where crews quietly rebuild, away from battles and social media.
In the battle scene, the camera takes on the perspective of the dance community, the community that the dancers come back to, as if the camera itself were another battler. The scene captures not only perfect clean sets, but also the nods of approval, respect and words of encouragement from one dancer to another, when someone stumbles or crashes in their round. The performance heavily draws on real breakers’ stories of injuries, burnout and return, encouraging them to inhabit Andy and Mei through their own stories and memories.
Ultimately, The Breakthrough is both a word of encouragement to the audience – to be true to themselves instead of blindly chasing for perfectionism and validation from others, and also a love letter to the process of coming back and to my dance community – to Raygun, to my scene, and to myself, accepting the fact that while recovery does not mean reverting to who we were, it means to be honest with our current selves.
Assignment 1
exegesis
The Breakthrough is a short film that follows an aspiring bgirl Mei as she battles her fears of not belonging to the existing breaking scene. This short film follows Mei and her mentor Andy in an empty spot where Andy challenges her to dance despite her hesitation. Through their interaction, the story explores how creativity and expression can become constrained by the fear of judgment and the need for approval. The narrative focuses on the moment Mei begins to move freely, shifting from self-consciousness to confidence as she realizes that expression does not require an audience.
The production process also emphasized on minimalism in the setting. The script takes place in a dimly lit area at night to create a more intimate and isolated atmosphere, which reflects Mei’s internal hesitation before she begins to dance. The use of a simple location also allows the focus to remain on body movement and performance rather than plot complexity. Movement and rhythm were also key parts of this short film. Mei’s movements, especially dance, start cautiously and more hesitantly, but as she begins to tap into the music and gain confidence, her dance moves get comparatively stronger as well. Andy’s moves challenge Mei to dance for herself, while also playing a mentoring role by initiating changes and guiding Mei to explore.
Week 1
This exercise focused on different shot angles - with the location set in a library, I found it interesting while challenging to come up with different angles using the bookshelfs to provide different points of view, with the requirement being twelve different shots and including an interaction with someone.
Week 2
Week 2's exercise included someone being chased - we decided to build this ARC chase storyline on campus bible study groups never taking "no" for an answer but put a plot twist to it.
In this week, I was acting as the person being chased, which I felt like I could have controlled my facial expressions better as they all seem to look similar.
Week 3
This week's exercise required 5 different light set ups, using part of the script for assignment 3. As the short scene we chose involved leaving the place, we decided to combine some of the light set ups together. It was useful as we had some complex light set up after during our shoot for the acutal short film, so this helped clear and test some ideas that we had in mind.
Week 4
This week the challenge was to do sound in different surroundings - an interior, one outside, and one as a wide shot. As we picked a dance scene from the script, it became even more challenging as we had to do multiple takes each time - with dialogue, with music, and just foley sounds for the footsteps.
Week 5
Blocking and Coverage was this week's topic. We picked a simple card game, and using the trees and mirror created this skit where Ella cheats in the game by using the mirrors. It was a fun one to do, with the main challenges being how to frame the shots to create suspense. There was not a lot of props around, so we had to make do with the two potted plants we had.
Week 7
This week's activity was the mirror activity and the subtextual activity.
The mirror activity was fun to do, as all it required was observation of what the other person was doing.
The subtextual one was more challenging, as we decided to use the short scripts for week 8 to do so. The script we picked was The Convenience, which involvued a lot of asking questions, specifically "where is the bathroom?" multiple times. It was challenging for the actors to portray the same question in multiple ways.
Week 8
This week's challenge was to complete a 3 minute short film within 3 hours. Despite being the director of my group, I was acting in this short film. It was challenging as I had to build up the urgency of needing the bathroom as Sam, and also act out the sheepishness at the end using facials. Another challenge was that as there were multiple groups doing the same script at the same time, we also had to coordinate so their equipment would not be in our frame etc, as well as the use of space. Overall, I found it a fun one to do (maybe except running up and down the stairs).