Dear Diary
The doors are closed. There are no more screenings of this film.
Synopsis: A woman cleaning out her childhood room is uncomfortable with
facing her past self. The old diary that she disregards magically finds
its way back to her, echoing the voice of her childhood self.
She catches the diary as it’s falling and is whirled into her diary world,
pages spiraling around her. She runs away from different
pages/environments personifying her previous insecurities projected
by society: a world of hair trees and vicious hair straighteners attack
her hair, a hall of brooding model’s legs try to stomp on her into a thin
sheet of paper, a video-game like obstacle of bright razors trying to
shave the hair off her skin, and finally…
She enters a void with a violent tornado made of magazine clippings,
specifically images of beauty standards she used to be obsessed
with. The images of eurocentric features start to attack her. Among
the photos is a polaroid of herself as a teenager, that she peels off
her face and looks deeply into, reflecting on the progress she has
made since then. The vicious images/features crawl up her body and
entirely engulf her…
Until she is able to break free, ripping off the images and stopping the
storm. The paper features lose autonomy, fluttering down as she
secedes the returning desire for those eurocentric features. From
there the world fades to a blank lined page. A collage of self
acceptance emerges around her, inspired by nature and graphic
shapes. The monologue she says during it is a diary entry she writes
to herself in real life. The film ends with the protagonist writing on a
new page in the diary.
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Director's Statement
Like many artists, Yulong processes life through artwork.
Researching beauty standards and racial tropes transformed into
toppling their grasp over her life and artwork. My thesis film “Dear
Diary” explores the haunting effects of lacking representation growing
up as a woman of color struggling with internalized racism and
fatphobia. Representation often boils down to the color of one’s skin.
As a look development artist, she feels a responsibility to carefully
share the beauty and history of someone through their skin texture.
Director's Bio
Yulong Jones is an Afro-Chinese CG Artist from the Washington D.C.
area. She specializes in look development, specifically for character
shading. In the summer of 2021, she interned as a CG Generalist at
Psyop, solidifying her interest in short stories/advertising. Yulong is
also a recipient of the W.I.A (Women in Animation) 2021-2022
Scholarship package, sponsored by the Foundry. She used those
funds towards the development of her thesis film “Dear Diary”.
Additionally, Yulong is a Student Outreach Coordinator at the Center
for Diversity and Inclusion at Ringling College. This passion for
diversity and equity work reflects in her thesis film
