"All The Little Impossibles": Student-made short film explores anxiety

“All The Little Impossibles tells the story of a teen girl suffering from a debilitating anxiety disorder that she has hidden from her loved ones for years. All she wants to do is feel normal when her friends invite her on a camping trip, but her fears are too consuming to face alone,” according to a description of the film.

Lapp describes her anxiety as “spiraling,” and in the eighth grade, she began to create the original concept for her story. She wrote a lot about her anxiety disorder, and the way that it has affected her throughout her life.

“My brain has been working this way since I was like 7 or 8,” she said. In the film, the lead character, who often mirrors Lapp’s experiences, goes on a camping trip with friends, but soon starts to spiral in the same way Lapp feels her anxiety creeping in.

Over the winter last year, Lapp took to writing with Stack on a screenplay for a film. It was during the writing process for the film that Lapp began to reveal the ways she experiences anxiety to people close to her. “Some of my friends were really astounded,” she recalled. It was through that process that she uncovered the ending to the film, which she said feels like a resolution with revelations about her own experiences, the meanings of which “I didn’t fully understand.

“It’s a happy ending I get to tell now, when I didn’t get the chance in real life,” she said. “I hope that anybody who relates to this film can understand themselves better.”

During the planning stages of the filmmaking process, Lapp saved up money to buy the equipment she needed to accomplish the demanding tasks of filming and editing various sequences from the film. She works as a photographer, taking senior photos and school portraits, and recently completed an internship with Story Gorge where she learned the technical aspects of shooting video.

Some aspects of filming she had to learn on her own. Aside from directing and filming, she had to learn to do a special effects style of makeup. More importantly perhaps was her learning to trust herself and her team to do their best work.

“All of my actors were so sweet and forgiving with me learning new things. I learned so much stuff in that three day span of shooting,” Lapp said.

The actors in the film were all involved in the Hood River Valley Theater Department, led by Rachel Harry, a Tony award-winning theater director and teacher. The project itself was not for an assignment.

“When I decided to start writing, I knew it wouldn’t work unless I got a particular actor from school to be my lead. She was like my dream person. I was really hoping she would say yes and she did,” Lapp said. Larsen-Teskey, who plays the lead character “Zoey” in the film, said when she was approached initially by Lapp to take on the role, she didn’t know what to expect, but taking her experience with stage productions with her, she began preparing for the role by journaling and creating memories that might parallel the lead character Zoey.

“I would always take time before a scene to sit and take notes, listen to certain music, (and) smell certain scents that kind of get me in the zone — imagining the situation the character is in,” Larsen-Teskey said.

This was her first film to perform in. She said that acting in a film is different from performing on stage.

“The biggest difference is that film is a lot more subtle,” she said. Stage characters often use their whole body to portray emotion, and reactions are much more exaggerated. “On film you have to reel it in… It was a good first experience.”

Filming scenes was often an emotional experience. “I learned how to wrap up after a scene and not be caught in those feelings especially when you’re channeling strong emotions.”

For Lapp it was a good learning experience to allow the actors to channel the energy and keep them in character throughout the duration of the shoot.

“I’m used to taking photos and I get excited when I take a really good one,” she said. The movie is not a high-energy, positive film, she admits. “When we were filming things with Fiona, my lead, she would be performing really incredibly; I’d get all excited, and it would get her out of that dark moment.”

Amid the shooting, Lapp and Larsen-Teskey, who is currently studying theater at Scripps College in Claremont, Calif., had a long conversation about what Lapp’s anxiety felt like, and how she should portray Zoey.

“I had this familiar feeling with what she was describing, but I think there was a distinction,” Larsen-Teskey said. “The main thing is that other people experience it (anxiety) too, and there are different forms. Getting to know that individual experience is interesting… In a project based off of someone’s story, the power of theater is just really strong. I just love exploring other characters and growing my capacity for empathy in doing so. It’s addicting. It’s reinforced how much I love it.”

The three-day marathon shoot was a jam-packed experience and required an immense amount of planning beforehand to be able to get everyone together for all the tasks that were required to complete the filming. As always things don’t go according to plan. In one instance their car got a flat tire, which put the schedule at risk. But some things were serendipitous — their boom guy was also a competitive drone race, whose skills were valuable during the drone sequences when they didn’t consider how much the wind that day would affect their ability to capture certain shots.

The cast and crew were always looking out for each other too. “By the third day, I was sort of a zombie… they were keeping track of how zombified I was, and supported what I needed in the moment… Everyone was so positive and helpful.”

Following the filming Lapp learned through YouTube tutorials and by consulting her mentor how to achieve certain looks for the film during the editing process, such as learning how to do color correction. She recently created a poster for the film and showed the film to her friends.

Lapp credits many people for supporting her through this role, including her film teacher Niko Yasui, multimedia teacher Shawn Meyle, Story Gorge founder Sean O’Connor, and her father Wes for helping in various ways, including putting their vehicle in a specific position for a car crash scene.

“When I wrote it last year I didn’t think anybody at school would care, and now I have two class periods in the day to work on it,” she said in an interview in early November.

Admission to the screening at 7 p.m. on Dec. 8 at Hood River Valley High’s auditorium is free to the public.