THE MAKING OF 'BLOOM GIRL'

Each of these MeOhMy shorts are 1/6 of a set of experimental pieces testing a different component of film making.

This film is No. 1 of 6.

The goal of this piece was to experiment with screeenwriting + longer-form narrative.


After directing a series of 'art' themed films, some tiny 60 second experimental pieces, a handful of music videos and social content for brands like Uniqlo and Converse, in 2019 I decided to up the ante and attempt a narrative-driven short.

Bloom Girl is about trying too hard to be cool. A girl goes to Italy to have one of those fabulously 'grammable trips (like the ones you see on socials). While attempting to be everything she thinks she should be, she misses out on what really matters. This is a short film about learning to let go.

I kinda did a crazy thing + blew my life up taking a tiny film crew over to Italy create this project. When I got back, two of my regular clients’s businesses went under within the same week. We are talking- factories closing + shopfronts going under. It was bad. I lost a heap of guaranteed work after I’d just blown everything I had on this film. I remember feeling terrified; until I secured new photography contracts, I knew I’d be living on a healthy diet of noodles + fear.

For the next two months while we were cutting Bloom Girl, I was in a very dark place (the irony of making a film about blooming, when I felt like a failure). I hated myself for taking such a stupid risk to make some tiny thing that probably wouldn’t matter much to anyone.

‘What’s the point of this thing Charli? Why did you do this?’ I’d ask myself, in the throes of some 2am panic attack.
‘Because I wanted to make something that might make people feel less alone,’ came my teary justification (usually while howling into a pillow- a 24/7 bad bitch, I am not).

It was too late to pull out. The cinemas were booked. The film was shot. People were flying in from around the country. Clients + Industry people were coming.

200 wonderful people rolled in to support me on premiere night. Twenty minutes before the film lit up the cinema screens, I had a panic attack so brutal I could barely breathe.

It felt like the end of my life.

Two years later + I can now say it was probably only just the beginning of it.
My biggest lesson that year was that vulnerability brings about the best kind of growth. It might not be particularly comfortable, but sometimes it’s necessary to move you forward in life.

Don’t settle for playing it safe, pals, go after the impossible. Sometimes our most terrifying moments in life can become our best.


xX

CREDITS

Written + Directed by Charli Burrowes
Cinematography + Musical Score by Benjamin Andrew
Produced by Carla Grant + Madison Sturgess
Stills - Carla Grant
Animation by Elly-Rose Burrowes