You Want Me to Film Myself Doing What?

The story I’m about to tell you is about the weirdest project I have ever been assigned in my four years of college. Actually, let me correct myself — the weirdest project I have ever been assigned in all my years of schooling.

Let me set the stage, quite literally, because this was actually a performance studies class in UNC’s Department of Communications. Except, because of the pandemic, the class was completely online.

The course explored and experimented with the ideas of performance as ritual, but also performance in everyday life. We looked at the creation of performances and aesthetic works to investigate the social, political, cultural, imaginative, perceptual, emotional, sensorial, physical, technological and more — basically, we got into some major theoretical stuff surrounding the “perception of actions.”

The “strange” project was actually a follow-up project to a different project, or maybe I’d call it a sub-project. Not too sure how to describe it because, well, this professor wasn’t the best at communication.

That’s kind of ironic for a Communications professor. But he was a nice guy and super go-with-the-flow, so no students really seemed to mind the disorganization.

The initial project was to film and produce a video of yourself portraying a persona. But you still had to be yourself — you couldn’t act as a character. So people did things like “me as a Ted Talk motivational speaker” or “me as a video game streamer” or “me as a broadcast television chef.”

It was a super fun concept and while I wish I maybe did something a bit more dynamic, I ultimately procrastinated the assignment, so I just went with a good ‘ol’ YouTube lifestyle vlogger. Think Emma Chamberlain.

The base “persona project” went off without a hitch. I filmed myself waking up and getting ready, going for a run and even picking up Chipotle — my favorite fast food.

I thought that was it. We all did.

Except my professor got — “an idea.”

He wanted us to do the entire project again. We would be performing in the same genre, but we would change the persona slightly — in whatever way he told us to.

Before this project was assigned, I knew this professor was, well, untraditional. My friend finally received her email with feedback on her persona. She now had to film her video game walkthrough, again, except this time “talking like a sailor.”

Our professor had instructed a student to film herself cursing up a storm.

I wondered what he would tell me to do, but then the email notification buzzed on my phone.

The email went as follows:

“Sutton – I don’t know why, but as I watched your piece, I wanted you to be in a full bunny costume.  And have more of the job take place in public.  Do everything else EXACTLY the way you did before, same intonation, way of being, etc.  Act as if you were not wearing the absurd costume.  Maybe it’s something else, but I think the complete masking of your face and body, and the absurdity of it are essential.”

A stock image of a public mall Easter bunny suit was attached.

My professor had just told me that he wanted to see me in a bunny costume. I decided to ignore the strangely sexual undertones of a grown man asking a young girl to put on a “bunny” costume and thought about how in the world I would complete this assignment.

Obviously, I didn’t have a professional-grade bunny suit hanging in my closet. But his email clearly seems like he expected me to.

It’s a good thing my lounge-wear wardrobe consists almost completely of onesies. That’s not even another story — they’re just really comfortable! I went with one that looked like a cow — it was the closest thing I had to a bunny.

As for the complete “masking of [my] face,” I brainstormed. Then I remember seeing something that could work in my best friend’s boyfriend’s apartment. It was a Baby Yoda full face mask. I proceeded to send probably the weirdest request he’s ever gotten — “Can I borrow your Baby Yoda face mask for like a weekend? I need to film myself wearing it in public.”

Then I did just that. I walked around Chapel Hill wearing a cow onesie and a Baby Yoda face mask — filming myself.

Yes, there were a lot of stares and pictures.

I am not going to embed the final video. Maybe if you ask nicely, I’ll send you the link — but probably not.