Spotlight: Miles Murphy on ‘I’m Dreaming of Love’ and Unexpected Beginnings
BORN FROM A NON-TRADITIONAL CREATIVE PROCESS — Miles Murphy’s latest project, I’m Dreaming of Love, is a short film that catches your attention. Rather than planning out the story and shots in pre-production, it’s made up of scrapped-together footage taken while testing a new camera. Murphy saw a story in the footage and decided to fit the pieces together like a puzzle. But no matter Murphy’s process, I’m Dreaming of Love captures a feeling that is hard to put into words. That feeling is one of falling out of love, watching and feeling it happen, and knowing that whatever comes next is going to hurt. Directed, filmed, and edited by Murphy himself, the film drew from his personal experiences with love, something Murphy was able to fully reflect on during this project.
I’m Dreaming of Love begins with piano, followed by snippets of a woman and man in a seemingly happy relationship. Romantic clips of riding bikes together, eating raspberries off each other's fingers, and running together in the shimmering sunlight quickly turn cold. There is distance between the couple — they aren’t in the same frame anymore, and they are quiet. Murphy manages to capture the slight shift that happens when a relationship is running its course. There is no obvious fighting or anger — just a slow burn to the end, one you might not even see happening till it’s too late.
In fact, one of Murphy’s favorite clips in the film is one of those moments. “I think my favorite part was after the scene where they're kissing, but the girl has her eyes open,” he explains. “And she's kind of looking away. And then back to these flashbacks of them together, when things were better.”
While the film’s footage was spontaneously filmed by Murphy without any specific planning, one part that the filmmaker did plan was the voiceover, which was made to resemble a voicemail. “I had some of my friends record actual voicemails for me because I didn't really care about the quality,” he says. “The actual quality of the voiceover is pretty bad, but I think it works.”
The voicemail, done from the male perspective, is played over the film's clips, which appear to be filmed on an old vintage film camera — like old memories flickering across the screen. The voicemail voices the man telling the woman that she is great, but this just wasn’t meant to be, and now a new door has opened for them. The last thing he says is, “Be easy on yourself,” which is one of the main themes of the film: we give ourselves time to heal, and it’s okay to admit when life gets tough.
Sound was important in Murphy’s process. The song “Count to Five” by Bedroom plays from the start of the film, the song beginning with melancholic piano, as it slowly becomes dreamy and wistful.
“Whenever I have an idea, I make a playlist of songs that make me feel the way I want the video to feel, because I think that's an important part,” Murphy describes. “And that was one [song] that has been on repeat for like the past few months.”
Murphy also included natural sounds like waves crashing and birds chirping in segments of the film, specifically in flashbacks of the couple together.
Something else Murphy was eager to include in the film was the French language. Interspersed between footage of the couple is the male character writing in French — he writes it in his journal, and later writes “le coup de foudre?” on a napkin: “love at first sight.” His former significant other later finds the napkin stashed in a journal, a memory of what once was. And another reminder for her to be easy on herself.
Murphy has an obsession with French stemming from French indie-pop music. “I love the way it sounds and I love the way it looks,” he shares. “And I think I really want to do a video completely in French, like whether that's a short film or maybe a feature-length thing down the road. I've just always been obsessed with the language.”
But despite his love for the language, Murphy doesn’t speak it. “I don't know what they're saying,” he says with a laugh. “But it sounds beautiful.”
Murphy’s film captures the intricacies of love and the pain that still exists and lingers when a relationship doesn’t end terribly. “I just hope that people can relate to it in some way, or if it makes them feel anything at all, I think that would be amazing,” he says. “I think that's always my goal … to have someone relate to the videos that I make in any way. If that's ever possible, I feel like I did something right.”
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