But let's backtrack a little.
On an earlier post (From Lady Birds to Moody Boys), I discussed how I wanted to convey similar themes to movies like Boyhood and Lady Bird, and how I wanted the same kind of heartfelt, genuine feel. Needless to say, this was gonna be hard to achieve in under five minutes, so I decided to use a nonlinear narrative structure to convey this type of story. Before I get into the structure, I think it's important I talk about my actual story and what it is I'm struggling to cram into five minutes.
My story is about the constant push and pull in the relationship between a mother and a son; it is a kind of super zoom into how the son copes with this tension. The mother's character is very traditional and stoic, and she finds herself struggling to cope with how her son is coming of age in a different country- given that he's inevitably influenced by the culture he's surrounded by (this is a first generation immigrant family). As a result, we see widening gap between these two characters which manifests itself in a lot of awkward moments and conflicting opinions.
The story follows the protagonist (who as of now is male, but nothing about his character is gender-specific, so it could change) in his last year of High School as he's eager to leave the nest. Like many teenagers, he seeks to be free from the constraint of his parents' expectations.
Now because I'm not one to scandalize deeply personal narratives like these, or to present a problem without any semblance of a solution, I'm making my short comedic and lighthearted. I simply don't want to create something that makes people sad, especially those people who are going through or have gone through similar experiences. If I'm going to bring these issues to light, then you bet I'm gonna do it in a way that provides relief or a happy ending. The bottom line is that if I'm gonna make a short about this very personal topic, I'm gonna do it in a way that I would like to see it represented- I also just wanna have fun!
I was initially going to talk about narrative structure in this post, but seeing as though I've rambled on for a bit I'm gonna spare you the unnecessarily long post.
My story is about the constant push and pull in the relationship between a mother and a son; it is a kind of super zoom into how the son copes with this tension. The mother's character is very traditional and stoic, and she finds herself struggling to cope with how her son is coming of age in a different country- given that he's inevitably influenced by the culture he's surrounded by (this is a first generation immigrant family). As a result, we see widening gap between these two characters which manifests itself in a lot of awkward moments and conflicting opinions.
The story follows the protagonist (who as of now is male, but nothing about his character is gender-specific, so it could change) in his last year of High School as he's eager to leave the nest. Like many teenagers, he seeks to be free from the constraint of his parents' expectations.
Now because I'm not one to scandalize deeply personal narratives like these, or to present a problem without any semblance of a solution, I'm making my short comedic and lighthearted. I simply don't want to create something that makes people sad, especially those people who are going through or have gone through similar experiences. If I'm going to bring these issues to light, then you bet I'm gonna do it in a way that provides relief or a happy ending. The bottom line is that if I'm gonna make a short about this very personal topic, I'm gonna do it in a way that I would like to see it represented- I also just wanna have fun!
I was initially going to talk about narrative structure in this post, but seeing as though I've rambled on for a bit I'm gonna spare you the unnecessarily long post.
No comments:
Post a Comment