The strangest thing happened to me at the gym today. I was swimming in the outdoor pool, which I have been doing a lot this summer. I’m extremely pale, so this is the most sun I’ve had since my family lived in El Paso, Texas in the 1980’s. I’m still very pale, just a slightly warmer shade of white. All that history aside, I had an epiphany while swimming. I started to count my strokes which bored me and I tried to make my mind stop focusing on that. In an instant, everything disappeared and a new short film came to me fully formed. 
I have been struggling with opposing views and values I have. All the films I have written or almost finalized in script form are all too expensive and too ambitious to just throw together. I have been tasked with finding something easier to do and can be done quicker and cheaper. This opposes with my belief and strict adherence to the belief that I only want to tell a story that has a deeper meaning, something that truly speaks to the human condition.
I’ve made movies that were short jokes. I’ve made the horror and sci fi things, most of which merit what I consider to be any form of importance. I stumbled on an idea that fit the restrictions of a limited cast, limited and specific locations I have access to, and even more importantly, actually means something.
What has taken me aback is that the film will have no dialogue, it is entirely visual in nature, and it can be shot in a single shooting day. I am not the most visual director. As I’ve said many times, I prefer working with actors and the camera part is more a shared responsibility with my DoP. This piece will rely almost entirely on visually telling the story.
I raced from the pool to the front desk to get a pen and any scrap paper to notate what I saw in the pool. After getting home, I transcribed and elaborated on this. After a friend stopped by, I raced to open my copy of Final Draft and I already hammered out a complete draft of the script. I will revise it a few times, get some feedback and hopefully have it finalized by Monday morning.
I plan on casting this and shooting this in the next few weeks. Yes. I feel that good about the idea and the story. God it was awful not having anything I could come up with…I smacked my muse’s ass and called her Judy!
“You’ll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You’ll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we walk in fields of gold
So she took her love
For to gaze awhile
Upon the fields of barley
In his arms she fell as her hair came down
Among the fields of gold
Will you stay with me, will you be my love
Among the fields of barley
We’ll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we lie in fields of gold”
– Sting
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