Eureka

 

    After weeks of neglecting the second half of my production, I finally decided to put some thought into what it should be. From the afternoon of my group meetings(this past Monday) to now, I had been constantly thinking about the content in the scene that would follow the montage, which brings me to today(Thursday.) Today, after 3 whole hours of a combination of talking to myself, pacing around, and rolling around on my floor(I am 100% serious about this,) I reached an epiphany. 

     I actually finalized and fleshed out the idea for the second half of my work. 

    The second half of the work will involve Julie waiting on a park bench in the middle of the day for a call from a law institution she applied to and unfortunately being rejected. Through the call with the lady on the other side of the phone(who it will be and if she is actually in the picture is still to be determined,) Julie's character background will be built, and the rejection, as well as her general being throughout the scene, will demonstrate her emotional state. At the end of the scene, a purposefully out-of-place shot will be taken of her, confusing the viewer in the process. Following this shot, a shot of Julie depressedly packing up her things and leaving the bench would play, but as she leaves the frame, my iPhone 13's built in cinematic mode would be able to shift focus onto whatever was behind her, which would reveal that someone had been recording her from afar through a camera. This mysterious man in the background would walk off soon after, and the scene would then cut to black. 

    This idea is far better than my original idea, which seems a bit more like something that would play at least a good ten minutes into the actual film. The genius (I would like to think) in having the mystery man not be given the spotlight in any single shot nor any dialogue whatsoever is that it doesn't take much away from the focus of the story at that given moment, that being the character of Julie and her life, while also hinting at what will unfold later in the work. I am also a firm believer in not spoonfeeding every single element of the story to the viewer because when a film does that, there's no room for the viewer to think or draw conclusions, making them feel like idiots or babies in the process. For example, unnecessary dialogue that tells exactly what is happening on-screen takes me out of the action sometimes, and I really want to avoid it with this scene. 

    I am so psyched that I have all of my plot points put together, now I can actually make concrete storyboards and such. Be on the lookout for that very, very soon.