Epiphany......Finally!

Ha! Eureka! I think I have solved my problem! I don't need to fix my ending to the latest film opening idea that I blogged about because I got an even better idea. Ideas do come from the weirdest places but I guess that gives it an extra sense of pleasure when they sneak into your mind and explode your brain, making your heart race with excitement.

Here's what happened: 

I was out with my family and we had gone to see a violinist, Itzhak Perlman. My parents were really excited to see him; I wasn't elated to go but I wasn't really discouraged either. Once we arrived, we took our seats, got ready to listen, and, as soon as the violinist played the first note of the theme from Schindler's List, my minded drifted elsewhere. I began to imagine myself running through the woods in the park near my home. I was running: running fast; running far; running for my life. Then, I tripped over a branch and fell, and, while I got up, the figure chasing me caught up to me. I could hear the branches moving, the wet leaves, every single one of them, dripping droplets of water. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Then, I was outside of my body. I saw my figure blurred in the background as a dark figure got closer and closer to me, yet the focus was on a single dripping leaf. As the final drop fell, I was back in my body. I stared straight ahead and, the moment that I stared at my opponent- Nothing.

I couldn't bring myself to think about that for one more second. It was an interesting story, but I would not end it that fast; therefore, I had two choices: 

1. Cut the chase scene into a shorter version in which an extended ending I hadn't come up with would have to be created with greater success.

2. Come up with something completely different. 

I went with option number two. 

The new story that I thought of goes like this:

Really soft music playing in the background will introduce the scene along with a beeping sound will begin to play back a set of voice messages. The camera will begin recording a bit after the sound begins. Then, the screen will fade in from black to a single-colored bedroom wall viewed from the floor. As the camera begins to move away from the wall, the floor will be seen as completely bare of anything. However, as the camera keeps backing up, the floor becomes more and more messy, filled with tissues and such. As the camera continues to back away and circle around the room, pictures of a happy-looking couple looks into the camera on printed images that lay on the floor. As the camera continues its full circle around the room, the clutter becomes even greater. While the whole room is being shown from the floor, the sound plays back "cute" messages from a male voice that is gathered to be the male in the images. Then, as the camera begins to rise onto the bed, the message playing finishes, and, right as the camera focuses in on the person laying in the bed, who just happens to be the girl from the pictures, a new message is played. The message is from the captain at the local police department and he is telling the girl about how sorry he is to inform the protagonist about the death of her boyfriend and that he hopes they can talk soon to try and lead an investigation with her collaboration. At the moment the message finishes playing, the girl opens her red, puffy eyes and looks straight into the camera, all noise, even the dim music, having had gone away. She sits up on the bed, giving the audience a semi-full view of the bedroom, and then she stands. She walks over to the other side of the room, kneels down on the floor, and opens a box. From the box, she pulls out a letter and, as she opens it and you see her eyes staring at the letter, the camera behind the paper, the voice of the boyfriend sounds inside her head saying "Dear _________". Then the introduction to my film will end.

The biggest influence I had when thinking about this idea, due to the fact that I didn't get any inspiration from any actual source of media but rather from music. The moment that everything clicked into place was when the violinist started to play the main theme from Schindler's List. That moving and highly emotional song made me want to make something about a person who, despite the death around them, manages to get up and begin the process of grieving and moving on through life. This song really helped my thoughts flow the most and they helped me focus more on what was going on in my head.

-EC

Reference: 

XXm4n0jXx. "Best Soundtracks Of All Time - Track 35 - Schindler's List Theme." YouTube. YouTube, 17 Aug. 2010. Web. 11 Mar. 2017. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VorGotjeLjM>

Martyprod2. "Theme From Schindler's List Conducted by John Williams (featuring Itzhak Perlman)." YouTube. YouTube, 14 July 2011. Web. 17 Mar.2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPRkZxlBAqI>