The Great Compromise

Hello blog! I wish I was coming back to report on some good news, on how successful my call to action was, but alas, this is not the case. While my advertisement for potential actors reaped quite a lot of responses, eager to help me with the film, I didn't really see any actors who would fit my vision for the film, and its characters. Now, I COULD have just casted them and moved on with production, but I felt very attached to my first vision and was too stubborn to let it go. Ironically, by the time I realized I had no choice, and would need to compromise, many of those who initially volunteered backed out or had new scheduling conflicts.

So now I have to cope with the product of my pride! My biggest concern regarding the casting was the adult characters not looking old enough to be convincing, breaking the immersion of the script. The biggest culprit of this was David, whose entire character was based around the "conservative boomer" caricature, and I feared that this aspect of his character would be lost on the audience if an obviously younger guy was playing someone who's supposed to be in his 50s- 60s. So I decided to bite the bullet and rewrite his character. What if David wasn't the father of the family, but instead an absent older brother who dropped out of college?  With this fix, I'd be able to maintain a degree of separation from his now-siblings Rebecca and Peter.

Instead of being a overly politicized boomer who fell prey to fake news and misleading media, David will be an older brother who left for college, but dropped out and came back home, contributing nothing and lazing around. Under this solution, I get to do minimal rewriting, and still make logical sense between everyone's character dynamics. Rebecca still hates David, but now instead of it being due to the generational and political divide between them, its because he wasted his opportunity to go to college, and blames it on his change in politics. This makes sense because Rebecca has always been pushy/preachy, so it'd be a logical leap to assume that she'd heavily judge him for his choices. Peter can remain extremely antisocial and dependent on the computer for company, in fact, it makes more sense if anything, as the void his older brother left in his social life was filled in by the computer.

This fixed a lot of my worries with casting, and means I can cast people very soon. However, this still left two plot holes in my story that were itching my brain:

1)What happens to Sharon?

2) Where are their parents?

3) Why is Rebecca at the funeral?

First, the easy one. Sharon's character has never been very important to me or the story, as she only had one line in the original script. So while I contemplated writing her out entirely, I'm keeping her for that one line (which I think is funny enough to justify her character imo). In this new rewrite, she will be David's college girlfriend whos staying with them for a bit. Naturally, Rebecca judges her for this and despises her, keeping their original dynamic.

Next, addressing the absence of their parents. Honestly, I was overthinking this one, giving them a grand backstory about how their parents are literally absent or dead, and how technology stepped into all of their lives to fill the roles of a parental figure, switching the funeral's tone to be as if their parent died. However, after talking about this with my instructor, we realized it really just wasn't that important at all. Like, literally no one will care where their parents are, it was just a plot hole that only I could see. So yeah, no parents, no problem.

The final question posed the biggest logical threat in my new story- as we know, Rebecca has no particular attachment to H.P, the computer- in fact, she hates it. However, in the original script, Rebecca was FORCED to be there because her parents were making her come with them. However, parents are now out of the picture, yet she still doesn't like the computer. So why is she there? Both my instructor and I wrestled with this issue for a few minutes before I suggested that Rebecca is there to farm social media attention. It is common for people to post sad pictures of themselves for online sympathy points and validation from others, so I figured it'd make sense that Rebecca sees this as a silly, but ultimately socially profitable opportunity to boost her social media status. This is why she can stay content enough with herself throughout the procession, but loses her composure as soon as her phone dies: if her phone is dead, she can't clout chase for sympathy points, so what's the point of being here?

Sorry for the long block of text, but this has been a source of some stress/anxiety for a few days now. So I'm back on track, albeit with some extra work on my plate to rewrite the script, but ultimately, I feel like I'm on a better track than I was previously. I hope you look forward to starting production as much as I do! See you soon!