As is so often the case for a story or an idea, be it good or bad, it
always seems to come from nowhere. The genesis of the story can be
sparked from a thought that is not connected to it in any way. Then
sometimes, a great idea comes from pure frustration.
You
could say the origination for my new film “My Inspiration” dates back to
the end of 2006. While attending church I met and befriended a girl a
few years younger than I named Shauna. Back then making films was just
something I did for fun while I pursued the dream of becoming a fiction
writer. Not long after we became friends I discovered she attended the
same high school that I had just graduated from. As an ongoing joke,
whenever we would meet up she would steal an article of my clothing and
then wear it to school the following day and tell all her teachers that
she was my younger sister. We had another ongoing gimmick where we would
stand next to each other and ask others if they saw the resemblance,
and some surprisingly did. Just to create an image: I am 5’10”, 160
pounds, with thick, wavy dark brown hair and average sized brown eyes.
Shauna is about 5’2”, 120 pounds, with thin, flat dirty blonde hair and
big, wide grayish green eyes. No resemblance at all. But that little
joke spawned into an ongoing thing. Even my best friend Scott would
refer to Shauna as my sister for several years.
In the midst
of this, Shauna developed an interest in the fact that I made little
films to pass the time and one night, I believe it was in December,
2006, we got together with our other friend Melissa, who turned the
camera on and just let it run. What she captured was about 10 minutes of
Shauna and I doing improv pretending to be a pair of spiteful siblings
just yelling and saying horrible things to each other. That somehow
turned into a crazy, disconnected short film. The moment we finished it
we were aware of how horrible it was. It was so horrible that we decided
to make a sequel to it that was moderately better and ran about 70
minutes. Not long after finishing that sequel we came up with another
idea and shot a 120 film with our other friend Katria. Once we finished
that one up we still wanted to continue making random films but,
needless to say, we were getting a little worn out on the whole
brother/sister dynamic.
As time passed and our schedules
both became filled with other obligations we discussed the idea of
making films together less and less and the idea of making future films
together turned into something we would bring up maybe once every couple
months. Neither one of us put much thought into it and so we never
really broke free of a new idea that didn’t pair us up as siblings. For a
little while we had an idea wherein we were roommates, but it didn’t
really go anywhere.
Around the beginning of 2010 the idea of
us doing a film together started rearing its head again when Shauna
moved into the same house I was living in. She lived there for several
months and with us suddenly seeing each other every day it was
convenient for her to become like a whiny little girl wanting to go to
the park. Complaining about wanting to do a new film with me became an
almost daily thing. This went on while I was taking on a full-time
college schedule at the University of Portland while also working 30-35
hours a week. I had about 30 hours of homework a week and a round trip
from home to school to work and back home was nearly 50 miles. I was not
really in the mood to cram thoughts on a new film idea into that mix.
Little did I know that my love of film was only a few months away from
being sparked into a dimension of love and appreciation I could hardly
imagine. I returned to school that fall with my focus officially
transitioned from becoming a writer to becoming a filmmaker.
Once I finished my spring term at the end of April, 2010 I found myself
with some time to relax, but Shauna still wanted to make another film. I
decided to dedicate some time to coming up with something, but at the
time my heart wasn’t into it and I was still failing to come up with
anything that broke that brother/sister dynamic. So I did the easiest
thing and I decided to stop fighting it and let any idea come to me.
This turned my thinking around entirely and suddenly I found myself
intermeshed into the notion of a really good brother and sister film,
however it turned out being.
I can recall when the first seed
of the idea was planted. One day, probably in early summer, I became
captivated by a thought. I began to ponder what the relationship would
be between a brother and sister who were close friends but didn’t
realize they were siblings and how discovering that after already being
so close would effect them. The idea sounded outlandish to me. How could
two people be siblings and so close and yet not realize they were
siblings? But the idea stuck with me. I figured out rather quickly the
only way this could occur was if these two were separated from each
other at birth, and possibly had no idea that they had any biological
siblings. On top of that little thought I thought back on one of my
favorite classic comedies, a 1940 William Powell/Myrna Loy film titled
“I Love You Again”. The film follows Powell who has been living life as
what one might call the 1940s version of a yuppie. But while on a cruise
he is struck on the head and his true personal, that of a con man,
resurfaces after being lost in amnesia for almost a decade. The film
then follows him as he tries to maintain his former identity when he
goes home and to try and not lose his wife at the same time. I started
playing with that idea that maybe one of the two contracted amnesia a
long time before they became friends and thus did not recall the other
as as their sibling. There were problems with that as well. Namely, if
only one had amnesia, the other one would still recall them as being
his/her sibling.
I had troubles out of the gate but I
couldn’t shake that feeling of doing a film about a brother and sister
who weren’t aware they were siblings. Furthermore, I still felt the best
way to go about that was to interject an amnesia aspect into the story.
Without having my whole vision established I still felt little moments
coming to me and I started writing. I got about 10 half-baked pages
written that just revolved around two people meeting who were related
but had no idea. I returned to school and suddenly found myself working
on other projects. For a short while the project was shelved again, but I
kept coming back to me.
About three years ago I completed a
22-page script and just decided to try and shoot it with me and two
other actresses. Shauna had become too busy with college herself and
this was just going to be a project for fun. I spent about three days
shooting what ended up being a 37-minute long film full of holes and
brought down a notch by my mediocre acting. This was also before I
finally purchased some high grade camera and sound equipment to allow
for higher grade film projects. The film quality on this piece was bad
to say the best. But it was just for fun; just to test the idea. I
honestly thought I was done with it by that time. I had shot it and it
was time to pursue other intriguing cinematic ideas.
Then the
summer of 2012 came around. After taking several film-related classes I
felt I was ready to take my DMC 192 course. The purpose of this course
was for a student in the film program to use all that he/she had learned
and put it to practice shooting their own film project. There were few
restrictions on the course except that I would have about nine weeks to
shoot whatever project I chose. All I had to do at that moment was
determine what I was going to shoot. For some reason, I still don’t know
how or why, but the idea from “My Inspiration” returned to me.
With the course beginning in late September I started planning to shoot
a revamped version of “My Inspiration” in the middle of August, the
moment my summer classes ended. I dug deep into the project, doing
practically nothing else with my life for those six weeks between terms.
I rethought the whole concept, filling in any holes or continuity
issues. The script was transformed from a 22-page piece to a 50-page
script with added scenes and the expansion of the lead characters
closest friend (who went from three scenes and six pages to six scenes
and about fifteen pages). For everything I reconsidered a new thought
came and the whole concept become better conceived and more driven. Over
the course of time this concept had expanded from a small idea for a
movie with a friend to something that could be a serious film
production. I had the script, I had the education, I had the drive, and I
had the equipment. There was only one problem...
As with
many things we are doing for the first time, with “My Inspiration” being
planned to be my first serious high-end film project, I became to eager
and was far too naive. Here I was, fairly new to the real world of
filmmaking and all of the organization, networking, scheduling, working
with crew, working with casts and so on. I had no real connections to
any crew people and I had no real connections to any actors. And
furthermore, being a working student, I had practically no budget. With
those restrictions, along with a lack of “on the set experience” so to
speak I thought I was going to shoot a 50-page, 62-scene script in about
five weeks (allowing four or so weeks for editing). Casting was hectic.
I didn’t even get two of my three leads cast until less than a week
before shooting. I scheduled my first shooting date about three weeks
into the term with my two primarily leads, the brother and the sister.
Our shoot was pushed to a start time of 3 p.m. and I found myself
becoming very nervous and making silly mistakes as I worked with a crew
that consisted of only a sound guy. In about three hours we got about
half a page of shooting done.
Three days later my lead for
the sister role contacted me and told me she was no longer available
because she had become busy with other work. I knew this was just an
excuse and the reality was that I hadn’t created the best impression on
that first day. So there I was, confused and overwhelmed, already a week
into the term, with only half a page of script shot (that had to be
re-shot with a new actress) and I didn’t even have the third major role
in the film cast yet. In those few days I learned a lot about the stress
and responsibility of filmmaking. While it was a total disaster I am
still glad that it happened. I acknowledged the unfortunate truth that
this film just was not going to get done with where I was currently at
and decided to postpone the project for another one. It turned out to be
one of the greatest decisions I’ve ever made.
Taking my
newly learned lessons to heart and will time ticking against me I pulled
a little miracle out of thin air. I took a bland, directionless script
that I had never finished and turned it into a 24-page script titled
“The Way We Are” about a repeat-assault victim encountering the first
man who ever assaulted her while stranded out in the wilderness. It was a
small project taking place at only a few locations and with only two
actors. The project was much easier to organized and I still shot it
with practically no crew over the course of five sporadic days.
Considering how crazy that term had turned out I came away with my first
serious piece of high quality film work and made it out of the course
alive.
Once again “My Inspiration” was shelved. After
shooting “The Way We Are” I came up with another short to shoot and then
became entangled into a three-month long project for class. After that
summer arrived and I found myself shooting a series of short films,
mostly a mix between the dramatic and comedy varieties. There was
another more significant piece of work that I wrote during the early
months of 2013 that I shot during the fall. That took up a significant
period of my life and when I had the piece all finished up I found
myself wondering as to what I would do next. I had a web series in the
works but the further along I got into preparing it the greater the
project became and the less I felt truly inspired to do it.
This series was intended to be a rather wild comedy, but while I was
working on it I found myself watching a series of great classic films.
There were a few Hitchcock classics mixed in there along with films like
“All the President’s Men”, “The Color Purple” and even a few later
great Billy Wilder pieces like “Irma La Douce” and “Avanti!”. Watching
these films I started feeling grabbed by one of the major commonalities
between the works of Hitchcock, Spielberg and Wilder (possibly my three
most favorite directors). All three of these filmmakers did epic pieces
of work. Hitchcock had “The Thirty-Nine Steps”, “Rebecca”, “Strangers on
a Train”, “Rear Window”, “Vertigo”, “North By Northwest”, “Psycho” and
“The Birds” to his credit. These were all epic, dramatic, intense pieces
of work. Spielberg had “Jaws”, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”,
“Raiders of the Lost Ark”, “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial”, “Schindler’s
List”, “Jurassic Park”, and “Saving Private Ryan”. Again, a director
with an extensive list of success utilizing very action-packed and
dramatic styles to his work. Then there’s Wilder, quite possibly the
most underrated director of all-time, with classics such as “Double
Indemnity”, “The Lost Weekend”, “Sunset Boulevard”, “Sabrina”, “Witness
for the Prosecution”, “Some Like It Hot” and “The Apartment” to his
credit. Wilder probably was the best at this aspect that really draws
these three directors together. That is their ability to make this epic,
dramatic, emotionally-charged films that are, at the same time, packed
with great comedic moments. In fact, those films that these directors
had produced that were the least successful were those criticized for
not being humorous enough. That was the great downfall to Hitchcock’s
1966 film “Torn Curtain” and it was a key criticism made against
Spielberg’s 2005 film “Munich”.
Watching some of these
directors, many which I could only hope to emulate, and catching onto
that great correlation between the two made me really want to make
something in that same vein. I wanted to have a dramatic,
emotionally-charged story but not one devoid of humor or
light-heartedness. “The Way We Are” was a very dark and yet uplifting
story with little to no humor. The film that I spent the better part of
this past fall working on as well was another serious story that did
have moments of humor, but they were few and far between. Wanting to
keep from falling into too serious of a consistent film structure and
knowing I had a knack for humor, I knew I could make something in this
style.
While thinking this over I was reorganizing papers in
my room and I stumbled across the script for “My Inspiration”, which I
hadn’t read since the early fall of 2012 back when I was still planning
on shooting it. I thought I’d give it another shot and just sat down and
read through the script. This short while later, having worked on many
film projects and developed many connections in the film work I found
myself immediately falling for the script and knowing that this time
around I could make it happen. I immediately took that original 50-page
script and began to break it down again. I added a few more lines when
necessary and cut lines out in other places. I added a few scenes and
made the overall story flow better together and more dynamically. As I
did this I spent several hours visualizing the story and how it would
come out on camera, which proved to be a remarkable assistance in
producing a detailed shot list for the production (a much more detailed
list than I’ve ever used before).
That brings us to the
present day, as I make preparations to begin production on this film in
the middle of February, 2014. There is one final thing to discuss in
this regard however before wrapping things up: the storyline. I’ve been
rambling on here about how the film came into being, more than once, but
I haven’t gone in-depth into the story. So here goes...
“My
Inspiration” follows a young writer named Daniel Kellerman, who has been
a dedicated writer since discovering as a child that he was adopted and
that he had a biological sister named Hanaley (Haw-na-lee) who was
adopted as well. Learning he had a sister but never knowing her, Daniel
began writing as a way of creating a persona for her. That elevated into
becoming a well-rounded writer, while always being driven by his hopes
and dreams of one day finding and finally meeting Hanaley. When the film
opens, Hanaley has finally uncovered where Daniel is and is on her way
to pay him a surprise visit when she has a car accident in town, when
her car goes off a bridge and into a river. She is presumed dead and
Daniel receives a call from Hanaley’s adoptive parents, the only other
people who also know where he is, and he learns that his sister has
died.
Daniel’s world is turned upside down. Despite his great
talent and future in writing he finds himself unable to write and
decides to give it up, assuming the lost dream of meeting his sister was
the only thing driving him. While he struggles with this realization
Hanaley is washed ashore, barely alive and suffering amnesia after being
struck in the head. She has retrograde amnesia, which is the form of
amnesia that makes you forget details and memories that existed prior to
the trauma that caused that amnesia. As Daniel wanders around
aimlessly, not knowing what to do, he finds himself continuously
encountering Hanaley and becoming intrigued by her confused and lost
demeanor as she wanders about trying to find anything that will remind
her who she is. It is her bewildering behavior that leads Daniel to
begin writing again, even though at first all he writes is about how she
acts and how it effects his thinking.
Daniel finally
conjures up the nerve to speak to her, discovering that she has amnesia
and doesn’t know who she is or where she is going. This intrigues Daniel
more and he continues to write about this amnesiac he’s just met,
completely unaware that this is his sister. To help in his progression
of writing he befriends Hanaley and becomes dedicated towards helping
her remember who she is. As this goes on, Daniel has another important
relationship going on in the film, which is that of his closest writing
companion, a girl named Alex. Alex is the opposite, personality-wise,
from Daniel who is very polite and soft-spoken. Alex is very outgoing
and calls things as she sees him. To her, the bond she shares with
Daniel is much stronger than just being writing companions. She’s been
practically in love with her since the day she met as his writing
ability completely astounds her. But Daniel’s greatest fault is the fact
that he never finishes a written piece of work unless it’s perfect in
his eyes. Thus he seldom finishes anything, which attributes to his
status as a struggling writer. This is her one place of contention with
him, the fact that he gives up so easily. She thus becomes the driving
force in keeping Daniel on track as he engages in his most recent work,
the story of an amnesiac girl who seems to have come from nowhere.
As the story progresses the bond between Daniel and Hanaley grows,
ultimately forcing Daniel to face his greatest conflict which is facing
the reality as to whether he is assisting Hanaley because he truly cares
about her or because he wants her to remember simply so he can finish
his story. This causes further conflict when it appears Hanaley isn’t
going to discover who she is anytime soon, providing Daniel with a
reason to considering giving up on yet another story. This leads us into
the latter portion of the film so I will cease from discussing any
further details and practically giving away everything that occurs in
the film.
In reading this detailed description of the
storyline however one can see how I managed to interweave those early
thoughts such as a brother and sister who don’t realize they’re related
and the theme of amnesia into a legitimate storyline that is both
captivating and emotionally-driven. There is little doubt in my mind
that this will be my greatest work to date and I am extremely excited to
begin production on it in February. If you are reading this you may
have possibly already made a contribution of some kind towards this
production (and if you haven't the link to do so I posted below if you
wish to), and hopefully this written piece gives you a much stronger
idea as to the type of work your contribution is going towards. And I
thank you again for your contribution and in helping this film become
closer and closer to being a reality. And if you wish to monitor the
progress of this production in pre-production, production and
post-production you can follow that at any of the links listed below.
Thanks again!
INDIEGOGO CAMPAIGN PAGE:
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/short-film-my-inspiration/x/121165
MY INSPIRATION FACEBOOK PAGE:
https://www.facebook.com/myinspirationfilm
MY BLOG:
http://realvisionfantasyworld.blogspot.com/
MY TWITTER ACCOUNT:
https://twitter.com/SillySister85
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