T&T, Week 1 : The Happy Film Reflection

At the start of the process in making the Happy Film, Stefan Sagmeister started to plan and survey the needed information to proceed in this experiment where he’s the lab rat. I think he and his team did primary research more than secondary research, which made sense cause the subject is him as an individual that is looking for happiness. And for his part, he records his moods and feelings through writing diaries and documenting everything on camera. After collecting the information needed, he starts to create a plan for the different ways that one can be happy. The 3 ways he sought out for this experiment to find happiness is meditation, therapy, and drugs. Then he arranged the experiment timeline to be completed in a year, where he would experience the 3-part experiment in 3 months each.

At the end of all the experiments, he concluded himself not happy. But he wasn’t sad either. He did not regret going through all of it and was grateful that he did. The film created the opportunity for him to open up and have guts to do things he never would’ve done. No matter the outcome is good or bad, he still gained.

In the end, he tried to fly by attaching a bunch of yellow balloons with black color one that says The End to end the film. But because of the weather, the air in the balloon contracted with caused the calculation to fail to let Stefan Sagmeister to float with the balloon. And due to time constraints, Stefan replaced himself with his girlfriend. At the beginning of the balloon process, it was meant for Sagmeister to fly with the balloon but due to the unforeseen circumstance he has no chance to gave up, but seeing his girlfriend flying and loving the feeling of floating, he too felt happiness.