“A Woman of No Importance” is a story about a woman’s pursuit for being loved and her seek for recognition. The film narrates the story of an innocent and naïve lady, A-Xia, who always pleases her family and friends, even if it means to work for underground syndicates for income. Even so, she constantly feels neglected. Only after a life-saving incident, she come to understand the value of her existence.

Even though the film is packaged with crime elements, there is no intention of going with the classic crime film treatment, and neither to explore the cultural and societal issues related to underground syndicates. Instead, the film revolves around the sociological state of its characters, focusing mainly on the desire and loneliness of protagonist, A-Xia, following through her journey of seeking recognition and her emotions as an outcast of the society. As such, the cinematography will put emphasis on watching the protagonist closely, to bring about the sociological changes of the character.

The script for “A Woman of No Importance” was written and developed by the writer as a postgraduate student, and was a project commissioned by the PTS Innovative Story. The film, with a runtime of 27 minutes, was a student scaled production, shot digitally.

This thesis documents the complete creative process in the making of “A Woman of No Importance”, and also includes the writer’s learning experience as a postgraduate and his views on filmmaking.

Structured into six chapters, this thesis opens with an introduction, establishing the creative background, motivation and intention of the film. The second chapter is on literature research, elaborating on the relevant information on sociological issues and backgrounds, as well as the psychological and behavioral condition of characters in the film, and also diving into related visual works. The third chapter is about the creative process of scriptwriting, analyzing the script structure and character design of the film. The fourth chapter explains on the treatment, style and presentation strategies of the film.

The fifth chapter goes into detail with the production and execution of the film, documenting the whole process from pre-production, production, to post-production. The sixth chapter, as a conclusion, includes the results and feedbacks from the public screening of the film, as well as the writer’s final thoughts and reviews on the creative process of filmmaking.

The appendix includes the complete film script, a record of expenditure, production schedule, cast and crew list, etc., in hopes to provide reference for future filmmakers with the sharing of this experience.