I can’t wait to Quit my Job

Updates in Story (and life)

A lot has happened over the course of this trip. It’s been very emotional at times and I’ve had to think a lot about my family and my future. Because the source material of this project is literally my life, a lot of where I wanted to go with this story has changed.

Before, the main focus of this story was going to be queerness. However, that feels a bit disingenuous; figuring out my identity was a struggle and affected me and my home life a lot, but it was never the biggest thing on my mind. I think I want it to be a lesser focus, and instead have the family’s relationship with each other take the spotlight. If this were a feature-length film, I’d dedicate more screentime to the other family members, and likely change the structure, but for the sake of this opening there’s really only a few changes. 

Instead of a love interest going with Opal to see their family, it’s their older sibling picking them up from the train station (to go see their family). Also, I still plan on cutting to Incandescent, with the sound in the background being the parents fighting. Again, if this were longer I would change the structure, but for the sake of a two-minute opening I think it’s a solid device that will generate interest.

By the end of this week I will have developed a storyboard and detailed description of the plot, along with a timeline. But the rest of this post will be dedicated to two films I mentioned last time, Brokeback Mountain and Moonlight.

Film Studies

Content

The first thing I want to talk about is the overall story of each piece. Moonlight is about Chiron’s early life, in three different stages. My piece follows a similar structure, dividing the story in two stages, but the main difference is that each point in Chiron’s life is a specific range of time; a couple of days or weeks, after which it skips to about a decade or so later. Mine is kind of all over the place; Incandescent takes place during the “early years”, but that’s so vague. It makes more sense to keep it to one time frame, which will be Opal’s senior year of high school. Iridescent is a period lasting decades, which I’m not completely opposed to, as it juxtaposes the one year quite well, but at this point I want to cut that part completely.

As a matter of fact, as I write this section of the post, I’ve come to disagree with what I wrote earlier, regarding not changing the structure for the opening at all. Firstly, I finally landed on a title; Incandescent. Instead of it being just a piece of the story, it will be the entire story. I don’t feel as though I have enough life experience to write a version of me that doesn’t even exist yet. I will also follow Moonlight’s example of a triadic structure, though the points in time will be much closer.

Back to content, I found that Brokeback Mountain’s isolation of Jack and Ennis in the beginning is an interesting way to bring characters together, and might be something I would try to explore for the first act, but it’s not really something I think I can tie into the plan I already have for the opening. I can isolate Sam when it cuts to him, but using isolation to develop one character is much different than using it to develop a relationship like Jack and Ennis’. I also like how Brokeback takes place over a long period of time, as long-term stories are definitely something I want to explore when I write as an adult. However, for reasons stated in the previous paragraph, that is no longer something I want to do for Incandescent.

Opening

What I found especially interesting between those two films and my ideas was the difference between what each wanted to establish. Brokeback used a series of Wide and Extreme Wide Shots throughout the first two minutes to establish setting. The serene, picturesque mountain range dwarfs Ennis, and it also juxtaposes the loud train that runs by Joe Aguirre’s drab office. It makes Ennis seem almost insignificant. 

On the other hand, Moonlight uses it first two minutes to establish character. Interestingly, it establishes a side character, Juan. Juan is practically Chiron’s father in the movie, and his position is established with one continuous opening shot, following him exiting a car to check in with one of his drug dealers. The camera often winds around the scene’s action (a technique used a lot throughout the film) as Juan seems unbothered by the argument going on in front of him. 

Of the two, Moonlight is more closely related to my own ideas, as I wanted to establish a character with my opening, but it gave me an interesting alternative. Instead of focusing on Opal, I could focus on a supporting character. This had influenced my decision to focus on a love interest in Tuesday’s post, which will now be changed to an older sibling. In terms of cinematography, I don’t find the continuous shot to be very appealing. It’s not very practical for the level of equipment I have access to, and besides that I don’t really like the technique very much. I do like the Extreme Wide Shots, and I think I will use them, but I don’t want to dedicate my entire two minutes to establishing setting. If anything it’ll just be one or two shots.

Takeaways

I’ve found a lot of inspiration in these films. Not just for my opening, but for the overarching story. But now that I’ve decided to shift my focus to include more of Opal’s family, I want to look for films that center around a single character while developing a supporting group. Doing so won’t be of much value to my opening, as I only need to hint towards those themes, but I would like to treat the project as if I were actually filming all of it.