Just my luck, the day after I create my screenplay, we have a lesson in class about writing screenplays. But just my luck! All I have to do is go back and revise it. In terms of formatting, I've learned that dialogue has to be centered on the page and character names are always capitalized. My teacher also mentioned how I should be pulling ideas from real-life conversations and thinking about specific speech styles in writing the dialogue, so I went back and fixed that, too, making some of the lines more casual like "going to" to "gonna." When the time comes, I'll also remember to go through the lines with the cast to make sure the words feel comfortable in their mouths as it's important to me for the lines to be spoken smoothly and naturally.
A tip from the lesson in class was to also structure the whole storyline of the film in order to get a better idea of the purpose of the opening. So, as we know, my film is a coming-of-age drama that follows the main character Alejandro's journey of finding himself and learning to live with the memory of his late mother. The movie opens on graduation day and Alejandro is facing a big mental struggle to appear on stage as his mother has died of cancer a few months prior. It's hard for him to face this milestone without one of his biggest supporters, and it leads him to antagonize his father and distance himself from his friends a lot. The majority of the movie follows Alejandro during the Summer break before having to move away to college. He is going to an out-of-state college on a Soccer scholarship, but it's hard for him to leave his childhood home that keeps his mother's memory alive. The coming-of-age aspect is Alejandro acting out, resorting to partying a lot and distancing himself from those who love him, but his father and friends don't give up to get him back on track and realize that there is more to life. After many heart-felt conversations and grieving moments, Alejandro feels ready to move away and start on his college career in honor of his mother. The film concludes with Alejandro moving to his new home and getting ready to start his new chapter of life.
This helps me create my opening by giving me ideas of plot points to allude to. For example, since soccer is a big part of Alejandro's life, I'm going to include soccer memorabilia in the set design and try to include a picture of a soccer team. To show that Alejandro was close to his mother, I'll add multiple photos of them together to show their close relationship. I'm also going to add pictures of Alejandro with his friends as his friends will be important characters that help him find his way. A new idea I've had is to add plane tickets in his bedroom to foreshadow his inevitable trip to college that he has to take at the end of the movie. Thinking about props, I was able to also decide on a location for the set! Call it convenience or call it genius, but I have chosen to film inside my older brother's bedroom. Though I'll have to move a few things around and swap the pictures to show the actor instead of my brother, I'll be able to keep the majority of the things the same: the bed sheets, the desk and computer, room decorations (which will allow the set to keep a sense of reality and lack the feeling of being staged or fake). Before starting to film, I have to compile all my props together to make sure the set is prepared to be filmed in. And oh wow! What a coincidence! My older brother's name is Alejandro, too! Okay... yes, it was done on purpose. I had an inkling that my brother's bedroom would be my filming location and I thought it'd be beneficial for my main character to share his name, especially since there is a plank that says "Ale" in the room.
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