The Other Night At This Party

Logline

Two boys relationship is changed after fleeing a shooting at a high school party

Synopsis

Lucas and Noah reconnect at a party but it is cut short by a shooting taking place. They leave and go to a restaurant they both used to work at where they calm down. During their time at the restaurant they end up comforting each other which turns into confessing feeling for each other.

Details

To begin the pre production process myself and my team started by discussing
what kind of film we wanted to make. What genre we wanted to use as our guide, how we wanted the story to flow and so on. A Lot of this fell on me as a writer to decide and plan. I was during that early stage present with a prompt by a college I was applying to that heavily inspired me. The prompt was “two people’s relationship is forever changed after an event.” This seemed to fit perfectly into the genre we had picked, which was drama.

I began the writing process for this differently than I normally have. In the past I
have taken my rough idea and just began writing a script and let it develop on its own. However in this case as I wanted to make sure my story was fully evolved before I translate to script format I began by writing a short story. This was for two reasons, first it was a different path to the end result than I typically take and I wanted to experiment and really show growth and depth as a writer on this project. The second reason I decided to take this approach was because when you are writing in script format it can be difficult to accurately show emotion and since this is a drama and is intended to be about the emotions I wanted to avoid that.

This experimental addition to my writing process I think was extremely successful and beneficial to this project. The story I ended up creating followed the story of two boys Lucas and Noah. Both are acquaintances who had been coworkers at some point but had not spoken to each other till they both run into each other at a party. To really help me create believable realistic characters I ended up basing them off of people in my life including myself. Lucas’s is based on myself and Noah is based on a coworker who I had worked with but ultimately had a falling out with yet I dreamed about running into again. Adding this realism and creating characters who I could place myself into really helped me to deliver a story that to me seemed believable. Even though this is a Drama and the characters are based on real people I wanted to make some slight
references and cross over with the rom-com genre. I did this by basing the main
character traits and the romantic trope of the two characters off of traditional Rom-Com tropes, which used The Tropes in the Gay Rom Com Red White and Royal Blue.

Lucas is sarcastic and introverted with a crazy side while Noah is outgoing and sweet with a calm collected energy. This opposition of personalities sets up their budding romance and also helps to explain their reactions as the story progresses.

The story continues as after they run into each other and fall back into their old
rapport, with a shooting taking place at the party. This was something that I really worked with my production team to figure out. Originally I thought about having some horrible incident happen like a car accident that they are in or they have to bury a body.

However my director ended up suggesting the idea of a shooting taking place as gun violence is an ongoing issue in the United states and discussing that would add a topical element to the film. It would also set up a discussion about the effects of gun violence on youth as both Lucas and Noah are teenagers and as the film progresses the violence isn’t even the main topic simply a plot point which is a commentary on how the commonality of gun violence makes it simply just another event in life. This is where I drew from my references that being The Fallout about two girls who experience trauma in the form of a school shooting and forma bond based on that shared trauma. This inspired how the story would progress with the two boys confessing feelings for each
other.

After the shooting the two boys flee the house to a safe space where they can
process the trauma they have both endured. This was an important part of the story because this is where I wanted the main part of the story to take place. During the writing of the short story I focus a lot on this part because if I wasn’t able to get the emotions right it could come off as dumb or tacky. When they arrive at the rooftop Lucas is shaken up while Noah remains calm and collected being the strong steady force for Lucas. This relationship between the character shifts as Noah becomes more aware of his feelings for Lucas.

Noah begins to shift from calm to more nervous and the energy of the scene shifts to focus on the chemistry between the two characters. The story ends with Noah confessing his feelings for Lucas which is reciprocated. By using the short story method I was able to accurately create emotions and tensions between the characters.

When it came to the production of the film I took on the role of production and
script manager. I spent most of my time on set helping with prepping the set. This involved helping with lights, moving and holding the props and managing continuity errors. However my more important role was as script supervisor. I helped the actors know their lines and helped to guide them on the emotionality in the scene. As this is a film with emotion at the forefront of the story making sure the actors were not only able to show and portray genuine and realistic emotions, but were also guided on their emotional acting so my role was immensely important to make sure the film story was accurately represented. In conclusion I learned a lot in the process of writing this story. I was able to expand and improve my writing process and really test myself on writing
emotional stories.