I remember when I made Beyond my Sockets, it was a small idea floating in the back of my mind "blind dude with telekinesis." On some Saturday in October 2019, I woke up with a drive to shoot a film that day, I was shooting a short film at the time called "From A Vision" and I was supposed to shoot that day but I had a feeling my actor wasn't going to make it that day so I went ahead and started preproduction on Beyond my Sockets. I didn't write a script but I went straight into drawing storyboards and I would note certain frames on what to do. Whenever I got stuck on something I would quickly think of 3 ways of pulling off a stunt especially when it came to the knife sequence like I knew the knife moving was stop motion, then the knife flying up was gonna be reversed, and the knife hitting the testicles would be pov but I didn't really know how to pull it off so I was like "I'll figure it out when the time comes!"

 

     Around 2 pm, I began shooting starting with me as the Vandal Gang Member and then as the blind man. It was fun and my challenge to myself was to make it cheesy and don't care about it being professional and high quality. With that mindset I kept moving forward, using strings to pulls objects and such. I shot all day and wasn't tired because I was determined and eager to finish 97% of the shots. When it came time for that knife sequence, I shot with those scenes with ease, and at the last minute, I thought of digitally zooming in really fast on the testicles in post and bingo that's what I did. I ate some pizza and watched Do the right thing directed by Spike Lee. I stopped shooting around 12am and later that morning I proceeded to shoot the stop motion animation scenes.

   

     I began Post by separating the film into three acts, cut all three parts, edit the pictures together to make the stop motion sequences, added some unique cool sound effects like Magneto from Xmen metal sound effects and music, gave it a super 8 film looks, rendered the 3 parts, combined those 3 parts and re-render it. Looking back now it's my favorite short film bc I learned more about the art, I pressured and challenged myself and the end result was amazing. I came up with a full feature idea for this short film now so I'll continue to work towards that film and it's going to epic.

 

     To all artists and filmmakers, keep going, keep pursuing your goals which will soon to be your life's accomplishment. You may try to go all out to impress others with your work but just be yourself and put your emotion into your work and then show others. No need to impress others because A. They won't care or B. They will hate on it and you're destroyed. Make your work for you first and then show others. -Brax November 2020