森林浴
SHINRIN-YOKU (A FOREST BATH) - Short Film
Directed, shot, and edited by Bryce Saucier
Starring Miriam Mireles
Poster
Synopsis: A woman travels overseas to Japan to meet with a friend and experience the country together. When her friend doesn't arrive, she turns to her online image to cope with feelings of dissatisfaction and becomes disconnected from the world around her. When access to the virtual space is taken away from her, she stumbles onto a path leading to quiet solitude and self discovery.
PROCESS
The basis for the film came from the book Forest Bathing: How Trees Can Help You Find Health and Happiness that I borrowed from Miriam in early 2019. I was fascinated by all of the science behind the way time in nature affects our mood and health. We had already been saving for a trip to Japan, and I knew I wanted bring something back from our trip to share with the world, and since the book was about a Japanese practice, I thought it'd be a perfect subject to take place in the Japanese setting. Around the same time I began writing the story, I discovered the song "Soft Overgrown Steps" by City Girl. I don't have a background in narrative writing, so I used my method of creating music videos to develop the concept. The album art happened to be the color palette I had in mind for the film, and the more I listened to the song, I felt as if it were telling me the story. I reached out to City Girl with my idea for the film and luckily got permission to use the song in the film. I started a routine of listening to it every day, reading the book, and spending time outdoors to reflect on my own connection to nature. Repeating that routine over the course of a few months led me to the final storyline that I sent to a few close friends who responded with ideas and feedback. In the weeks leading up to our trip, Miriam and I were researching all of the sights and experiences we wanted to have in Japan. As we put together our itinerary, I saw clear connections of certain locations to key moments in the storyline.
STORYBOARDS
Knowing that we had a 13+ hour flight ahead of us, I procrastinated drawing the storyboards until we were at LAX waiting for our flight to Tokyo. I spent most of the flight listening to the song on repeat and drawing the storyboards until I got through the entire script. About 90% of the shots in the storyboard were shot, but there were still improvisations based on circumstances of shooting, as well as scenes that were cut in the edit.
BEHIND THE SCENES OF VENDING MACHINE SCENE
FILM FRAMES
POST PRODUCTION
Since this was my first time editing this type of project, I tried a new type of workflow. None of the sounds were recording directly to camera, so I recorded variations of ambience at each location and found all of my foley online. My original approach was to edit the entire film to the song "Soft Overgrown Footsteps". I ended up roughly assembling the full cut to the song, splitting the song and spacing it out, but after a few views it didn't seem to match the tone of the story all the way through.
Shinrin-Yoku Timeline in Adobe Premiere Pro. Audio Color code: yellow = ambience, rose = music, green/blue = foley, magenta = dialogue
A few days before I left, I was with a good friend of mine, Nader Ibrahim (Later Nader). He showed me a song he had started working on and he showed me his process of creating a beat from scratch. After getting to a comfortable point, we went for a walk on a beautiful nature trail by his house, and I had a very peaceful and blissful experience. I told him about my excitement for our trip to Japan and explained my plans for Shinrin-Yoku. Later that night he went home and added vocals and finished the song, naming it "Nature Bath". That song became the soundtrack to the ending of the film and is the only original song in the film.
