Moments Of Love And Longing - Another Feature Film By Matt Kieley

Billy Pilgrim

Billy Pilgrim

Stye in my eye
So, as I develop and research for my script We Will All Be Ghosts, I've begun writing another. I'm just a mere 3 pages in, but the characters and story have very quickly taken shape, and I'm certain this will now be my next feature. I think Ghosts will be very challenging for me as a writer and filmmaker, and I'm ready for the challenge, but it wouldn't hurt to make another feature before approaching that project, affording me more experience.

The elements of this story have actually come from a few different sources: a slightly different film idea (of which I had written the first 10 pages) and a short story. Both touched upon similar themes, and so it seemed natural to just combine both stories. It's not a straight combination, as the script was about a guy in his early 20s drifting around in life while his friends are graduating college and getting married. As his old friendships dwindle, he becomes lonely, but soon starts seeing a 17 year old girl on the verge of graduating high school and moving to New York for college. The short story was about a man in his 30s who reunites with his ex-girlfriend and greatest love, who now has a 6-year-old-daughter and a failing marriage. Also, earlier drafts of Carte Blanche had a subplot about a guy desperately trying to win back the girl he dated for 8 years, who is now married to someone else, and expecting her first child. I always liked it, but I cut it from Carte Blanche when I scaled it back from an ensemble piece to the simpler film it is now.

Moments Of Love And Longing follows a young couple, Walter and Gertrude, as their lives and relationship begin to change drastically. Gertrude is a contemporary girl who doesn't believe in love or marriage, and is constantly trying to evolve and change. She just wants to live freely and never settle down. She's also Walter's first girlfriend. Walter has long since dropped out of community college, and hasn't worked a day in his life. He's a hopeless romantic, and wants to spend the rest of his life as a poet, with Gertrude by his side. He's happy with where he is in life, and desperately wants to keep things the same, but is weary of Gertrude's ever-changing nature. This film is about the intense way life changes, and the sudden (and sometimes disturbing) turns it takes. It's about the way we fight and deal with those changes every day, and what it means to change things for yourself.

I'm interested in making a film with the theme of change, but I didn't want to make another movie like Carte Blanche, which the original 10 pages kind of resembled. I don't want to make another film about twenty-somethings talking and having relationship problems. I want to make a more intense film with a more complicated story. Throughout the film the couple deals with conflicting views of life and love, break-ups, new partners, pregnancy, getting their lives together and growing up, as well as personal changes. It's still going to be a simple, small, talky film (that's just kinda my thing) but I feel like this story will be more complicated and challenging, and will hopefully be more emotional than Carte Blanche, and go beyond young people crying about this guy or that girl not liking them. I'm happy with Carte Blanche, but I want to go in a slightly more mature direction, which probably sounds pretentious, but that's the frame of mind I'm in right now. I also want to convey how fast time slips by, which makes changes feel even more abrupt and shocking, so it'll probably have a fairly fast pace.
 
So in the funny way life works, in the span of five days I find out my health is improving, and now, the day before Thanksgiving, I'm told my father just died. I haven't seen him in six years, which is probably why it hasn't exactly sunk in yet. But then again, this is the way I respond to most things like this. It doesn't seem real. I feel like I'm asleep and dreaming. Life is weird.
 
After a lull, I stayed up all night writing a complete, scene-by-scene outline, and I'm not 19 pages into the script. I've had the major beats of the story up until this point, but not a scene-specific outline. I just need to flesh it out with dialogue. I'm pleased with it so far.
 
32 pages in. I'm pretty pleased with where it's going so far. I've only fleshed out maybe a page and a half of the outline, with 5 1/2 left to go. Hopefully it won't be too long. Ultimately, I'll let it be as long as it needs to be, but I like making shorter films, and I'm interested in the challenge of evoking an emotional response in a shorter amount of time. One of these days I'd like to try and make a ten minute short that can do that. For the time being though, the 80-90 minute format works.
 
I've been stuck at about 35 pages for a while now. No writer's block though, I never get that. I actually have the opposite problem. I have too many possible ideas, and I never know which one is the right one. But I've just been in the rut I get in every time I write something new. I just stop dead in my tracks and start to question what I'm doing and why, if anyone will even care, if I'm wasting my time, if I want to spend the next year or two of my life writing and making the film, etc. I came up with kind of a drastic new idea that has sort of refreshed the story in my mind. I might make this a musical. I can still use a lot of what I've written already, I just need to revise a bit. Kinda crazy, but I like it.
 
I did some revisions, which brought down to 21 pages. I definitely want to make it a musical, but more along the lines of Once, with musician characters. But I don't want that kind of music, as much as I love it. It's really easy to play guitar and be cool. I don't want a guitar-slinging busker for this reason. I really want the character to play accordion, and perhaps other unusual instruments that either create off-beat sounds, or aren't taken as seriously. Accordions can be beautiful, but they have a bit of a dorky stigma to them. But I also want the music to be very serious and emotional, primarily because that's the kind of story I'm telling, but also to hopefully keep the choice of musical instrument from coming off as jokey. But this creates a big logistical problem. I really want the person playing the scenes to really play the music and vice-versa. I want the music to be live and the performances to be raw. I need someone who can play the part and create and perform this very specific type of music. And I'm not much of a poet or lyricist, so I need someone who can write good songs as well as perform them. Fortunately Bakersfield is a big music town, so we'll see what happens. I also have an idea for the end, which I'm in love with, but I don't know if I can pull it off.
 
Good luck with the new projects. You have my sympathies regarding your father's passing away.

I think there should be more confrontation and bigger conflicts in these stories you're telling. I think you're on the right track.
 
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