Raymond Smiling talks about his film Ornamentation is a Gift, screening March 3, 2020 at New York No Limits Art of the Short presented by Wild Project
Questions composed by Iris Chan for NYNL
IRIS: This movie is based around the mother daughter relationship, and the growth of the main character based on her mother. Did you pull inspiration from your own experiences and family for the character of the mother? Was that difficult to bring in those experiences for the, at times, troublesome relationship? If not, where does the inspiration for this short come from?
RAYMOND: To make this film I mined my personal experiences, my relationship with my own mother, and really tried to drill down to the base of the issues we had. Ultimately it felt like differences in opinion on what “should” be done, how to live, that was the universal thing everyone could understand. So while I tried to make that a bit universal, the mother character definitely was more specific, and born of some of my mother’s personality traits and worldview. It was a long and often uncomfortable process.
IRIS: In today's society, the pressure of dressing up, and looking “pretty" as a female are very prevalent. This film shows the younger girl learning how to put makeup on and get ready with her mother, and then as a grown women all dressed up, and modeling. What would you say you most wanted to portray about the growth of the main character through using makeup and beauty as a lens of how much she’s grown?
RAYMOND: I find makeup fascinating. It’s such a simple thing, but it can carry so much weight and say so much about the person wearing it. Some see it as empowering, others as restricting. The thing I was playing with in this film was using beauty/makeup offensively and defensively. The main character uses beauty to protect herself as a teen, then to manipulate the world around her as an adult. But in both scenarios there’s a deep wound she has that’s being covered up. I think we all, do that. We all find ways to hide our pain, whether we wear foundation or not.
IRIS: Which filmmakers are you most inspired by, both personally and specifically for this film? Why?
RAYMOND: For this film specifically I was inspired a lot by Steven Soderbergh, Celine Sciamma, and Khalil Joseph. Celine made a great film called Girlhood a couple years back, about French black girls that was really intimate and emotive; while Soderbergh’s Magic Mike XXL and Joseph‘s Process were inspirations on editing techniques and non linear narrative.