A Sudden Burst of Inspiration

Today, in the middle of brushing my teeth, I had an aha moment. I have a much clearer idea of what I want to do for my film opening's storyline: a theater kid in high school, Iris, simply wants to work up the courage to invite her mom to her upcoming show. The only problem is that her mother seems to always be preoccupied with something for work. I really want to portray an emotionally absent parent with a non-rebellious or non-stereotypical teenage daughter type of relationship. These bursts of inspiration come at the most random times of day, but I'm confident that I can make a story like this work to become a proper drama film opening. I have a plethora of ideas for set design, sound, and cinematography, but I'll cross those bridges in due course, so I'm going to work on solidifying what I want for my plot first. 

I chose my main character's name, Iris because it's one of those names I always found had a pretty ring to it. According to Google, it's derived from "the name of the flowering plant, which comes from the Greek iris, meaning "rainbow"."' This discovery has enabled other gears in my head to start turning for how I can hint at her name before the mother says it, ideally towards the end of my opening. The flower, Iris, looks like something I've come across before. 

There are a couple ways I can approach the symbolism for Iris, the first choice being costume design. Considering that the flower is a royal purple color, I can add something to her costume design that aligns with this color, but that'd be very surface-level symbolism. This brings us to our second choice, production design! I have a very specific decoration in my house and it's a handmade rainbow tree of wisdom. My brother purchased it in an artisan market a while back for my mom, and it could be the perfect little detail to add to Iris's room if I decide to include a scene with her room in it.

My personal tree of wisdom

I especially like how this decoration is handmade because it would play into the artistic side of her character as a theater student. The final choice of symbolism I want to incorporate when introducing Iris is lighting techniques. When you think of a rainbow, you think of the vibrancy of all the colors, but rainbows only come after a storm. The rainbows we see are soft but so ephemeral because we rarely see them, but when we do, it feels almost hopeful. I want the light on Iris to come across softly, like a soft white backlight that looks like sunshine. It would make more sense visually, but I think my next steps during pre-production are writing the script and making character mood boards. I found that making the mood boards for our previous projects allowed me to gain a much more thorough understanding of how the characters would be delivered visually and will definitely be a big help while filming to refer back to. On that note, I'll talk to you soon!