Digital Lover, a Thesis

Digital Lover, A Thesis is a short film about two young Black women who fall in love over the internet. The film can be classified as a music video, utilizing the song Digital Lover by lil qwerty and Lee, but breaks slightly from generic convention by utilizing an entirely narrative-based approach. This thesis submission shows the scope of this work’s creation, including the primary ideation and pitch document (the treatment), a version of the script from the middle of pre-production, and a late-stage version of the film.

Set in 1999, the film focuses much of its time on exploring alternative visual interpretations of a color-saturated digital space, and contrasting these with a less-vibrant analog world. This contrast intends to provide a visual differentiation between the digital and analog worlds, serving as the basis of the film’s storytelling. The built worlds privilege the emotional context of the internet, and contain an inherent thesis statement: that the digital experience can be as rich and meaningful as that of the analog, if not more so. The visual direction is the result of integrating several perspectives, including contemporary representations of the internet on film, personal observations, digital themed art installations, and experiences of others on the internet. As such, this film intended to engage with the existing body of work, and provide an artistic contribution to what already existed within the film and music video landscapes.

With this, I intend to use storytelling as a tool for conceptualizing worth. Specifically, with the centering of two Black women as romantic interests, I hope to provide a nuanced affirmation in a space where representation is often lacking.