Pen to Paper, Voice to Memo

Well, this is rather intimate.

If this blog documents how I work in a real, not-performed way, then this post is the first of many glimpses into my mess. The following is based on yesterday’s research, and I do think it’s helpful planning! That said, it’s also transparently a wee-hour-of-the-morning-can’t-sleep-so-I’ll-think-about-media thought dump. I’ve attached both the actual audio recording and a transcript, plus the rough sketches I made after discovering that sleep still evaded me. It’s my first shot at visualization, which makes me feel like this might actually be real.

Me, slightly hoarse, with about 40% of the “um”s and “like”s transcribed: 

“Okay so it is, in fact, 1:09 in the morning, so I’m not going to try to write it out in words—because it won’t make sense—but I sure can ramble. I couldn’t help but think about my project. I’ve been thinking about like, how short and how long two minutes is at the same time. So okay, it opens with UNNAMED MAIN CHARACTER nervous in the car, ‘cause they’re the kind of person who needs to be fifteen minutes early to everything just so that they can sit in their car, amping themself up to actually go inside and Do Things. I imagine them sitting with like their knee up in some awkward position, on their phone, we see for a second that they’re scrolling through someone’s Instagram page, uh, and then an alarm goes off and they jump and we see them like roll their eyes or whatever, and we can surmise that it’s like time for them to go in. And they’re in some kind of uniform so we know that they’re about to go into work, um, then it’s—I don’t know about black—but like then it’s a solid panel for ‘Teddy Bear Media’ or like ‘a Teddy Bear Media production,’ som’n like that. And then it’s just a bunch of shots of UNNAMED MAIN CHARACTER cashiering, we only see them in bits and pieces, like maybe just their, like a sliver of a profile of punching in an order. And then all the credits—this! I thought of this this morning, it makes me feel so big-brain—all the credits, um, the names are written on the cups, so it’ll be like, the love interest’s name is Valerie, it’ll be ‘CAMILLE ESIN AS’ in superimposed text, but then it says ‘Valerie’ on the cup. Or like, UNNAMED MAIN CHARACTER’s name is on the cup, and it says like ‘TESS SEGAL AS.’ I don’t actually know if it’s me, but, y’kn--as an example. And then all the other names, it’ll say ‘Tess Segal’ on the cup instead of superimposed text, and it’ll be like ‘CINEMATOGRAPHY BY.’ I don’t know! I thought that would be cool, and then the final thing is that UNNAMED LOVE INTEREST takes their cup--I mean, they order at some point--but they take their cup, and there’s a split second where they linger on Unnamed Main Character’s hand, for a little too long. And you can tell that UNNAMED MAIN CHARACTER gets real excited by that, ‘cause like, isn’t that THE experience? Just like yearning—wistfully, painfully, passionately—over half a second of eye contact? I don’t know man, they say ‘write what you know.’ Um, and then we see their reaction and then it cuts to like ‘NAME OF MOVIE’ card. I think that would be cool! And that sounds like two minutes to me. I mean, this explanation is, what, three minutes? That’s the best I can do. Alright, it’s 1:13 in the morning. Have a lovely day, whoever is listening to this. Probably future self. Hey future self, you’re doing a great job.”

I promise I’m a bit more articulate in daylight. Anyway, I stayed up thinking about names of characters, what the movie should be called, and then eventually doodling those credit frames. Here were my conclusions:

• Audrey might be a good name for the MC (sort of old-fashioned and awkward but also feminine, likely because of the association with Ms. Hepburn— plus it literally has the word “odd” in it, which fits a quirky character)
• I can’t remember what, exactly, I was referring to when I said “isn’t that THE experience? Just yearning—wistfully, painfully, passionately—over half a second of eye contact?” Did I mean that’s “THE” experience of the film, i.e.“THE” experience that encapsulates MC’s awkwardness/hopefulness/desire for affection? Or “THE” barista experience, so starved for contact and respect that a lingering hand on a cup is memorable? Or—and I don’t mean to get too deep here—did I mean that that’s “THE” queer experience, left out of typical high school romance, hyper-aware of gentle contact, so tuned in to possible signals and messages that it’s easy to read too much into an interaction? In any case, I followed that thought with "They say 'write what you know,'" so it could be any of the above.
• Maybe the film should be called “Matcha.” That’s a drink one can order at the cafe (I imagine UNNAMED LOVE INTEREST getting an iced matcha latte), plus it includes “match,” which works for a quirky coming-of-age film in which one of the MC’s core tendencies is hopelessly romanticizing their life (such as, oh I don’t know, customers at the cafe who brush against MC’s hand). Oh man, marketing idea! I know that isn't even really a part of this project, but imagine a poster* that shows some handwritten note or something, reading "I love you so" (because that's used as a statement in and of itself), and the title in digital text says the name of the movie, so the full thing reads "I love you so MATCHA," an oronym for "I love you so much." This is informed by the genre research I did (like the inordinately beautiful Ladybird marketing texts, bringing in Sacramento-core Catholic imagery), and the same way that I'll be planning the whole plot even though I'm only filming 2 minutes, it might help me to imagine the film's marketing and distribution, not just production.

Last note, since this is the first time I’ve actually thought of the sequence of the opening, I’m realizing where previous posts’ “oh I hope I can use this or that” might actually come into play. For example, it doesn’t really seem like there will be a point where the MC would be wearing headphones (see the note about sound perspective in Let’s Tik-Talk About It), but maybe instead of scrolling through their phone, they’re just nodding off listening to music, and when the timer goes off, we see MC turn the volume down on the car stereo (accompanied by the music getting quieter, making it diegetic) before turning the engine off and hopping out.

*Don't just imagine it! See above.