Spider-Man: Across the City of Orlando

I feel day one of class I had teachers constantly asking "Have you been thinking about your F1's?" And admittedly I have been thinking about my F1 for some time by that point. It was probably around late-May or early-June where I began to think about a story that could go on to define my Fall semester. I would spend an hour every couple days just writing, listening to music, and thinking. One of the things I initially thought about was my dog, Chiky, that had recently died. I developed the general beats, visual aesthetics, and even the choice to light it like a noir. It would be a movie about grief. I left it for about a week and realized it would be terrible choice to make that film because it would mean that I would have to live with that emotion baggage for another 6 months, and I began to question I really wanted to spend my first semester of stressful film school constantly thinking about grief and hidden emotional expression. So I left my sketchbook alone for about 2 months. I wanted to prioritize my last full summer, spending time with family, maintaining long-distance relationships, and my health rather than stressing about potential F1 ideas. It was also around this time that I decided to treat myself with a ticket to Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Live In Concert.

Brainstorming began again in August while I was planning my trip back to Florida. I thought up about 2 stories, one about gambling and the other is sort of spin on the Monkey's Paw. I didn't do much more than think up the basic premises until I arrived on Tallahassee and had a day off. I went to the Union grabbed lunch and sat down with the quest of developing 3 stories that I can further develop once I'm in my Screenwriting class. And I did.

Around this time I was also coordinating with Sam Perez Laurenza our trip to Orlando for Across the Spider-Verse LIVE where we would be staying over at Isabella Chiappini's (friend I haven't seen since high school) apartment. They wouldn't be going to the show with Sam and I, but we'd be catching up. For those who don't know, Isa is someone I used to work with a lot during my Junior year of high school; such collaborations include, but are not limited to: While We're Young and Me + Michael.

By time I started my Senior year, Isa had gone off to college and the last time I saw them I believe was Spring Break of 2023, which to some may not be that long, but given what both of us had done in that time I feel it was quite a while. While I was starting college, applying to film school, and living in Texas during my off time, Isa had gone to Armenia as a part of production exchange program, befriended international students while there, which was then followed up with a semester abroad down unda in Australia, had a pivot into organic fashion and bio-design, working for the Oscar qualifying, Florida Film Festival, and probably more stuff that I'm forgetting about. Point is Isa is cool as fuck and I really wanted to catch up.

When the week came for Across the Spider-Verse LIVE, it coincidently lined up with the deadline for our Loglines in my Screenwriting class. This would be the first official documentation of ideas that could potentially go on to be our final F1. Luckily I had 3 ideas and would be getting back Sunday afternoon before which would give me enough time to translate my notes into a formatted document for submission before 11:59 PM. So the plan would be drive down Saturday morning to Orlando, go to the 2:00 PM showing, hang out with Isa, and return the next morning to Tallahassee with enough time to turn in my assignment. Easy.

Soon came the day and it was. We admittedly arrived at like 1:30 so we were cutting it close, but we made it to the wonderful showing. If you're a big fan of the movie with really a really good sound track, I would recommend experiencing it live if you ever can. Following the showing we meet up with Isa and we hit the town. They took us the the famed Enzian Theater where they host the Florida Film Festival, and we also stopped by an Antique Store.

I've always enjoyed going to Antique Stores with friends and window shopping all the really cool items. I feel it saw it a lot about people when they find "their object" and that was precisely the goal Isa presented to Sam and I, to find "our object". We probably spent like 2 hours looking around for just the right object, and it was fun. The store really lended itself to the exploration with it's tall shelfs and winding corridors that kept sprawling revealing more and more antiques; and right as you think you've seen it all, you find a doorway into an entire other half of the store you didn't even know existed. At some point Isa planted the idea of going into an antique finding an object and making a film about it, and while that's not what either of us ended up doing, the idea of a film in an antique store was really cool to pass on. Eventually I found and bought my antique (vintage liquor bottle), I spotted a sign at the front about the same idea of finding your object before someone else find it. And with that I had made the adjustment in my plan to schedule 1 hour of brainstorming to see if I can come up with a story that would involve an antique store and submit that among my 3 loglines.

After a wonderful evening with Isa and surprise guest Tristan Dingcong (another high school friend), we bid farewell the next morning and headed home. It was now time for the hard part of the plan, coming up with a new 3rd idea.

Like I planned, I allotted an hour for thinking and writing. I wanted something with a search, and a component of "finding what's mine". At some point I took it literally and thought about someone retrieving something, but what can be so important that this protagonist needs to find before someone else. Well it probably something that relates to their family. But is a search enough for a whole story? Well what if they do find what their looking for, but someone is not letting them have it? Another customer? Maybe. What about a cashier? What if the cashier is giving them grief and not letting them taking it? Why does the protagonist need this thing? What if it's an Urn. 

And as much as tried, I was back where I started: a movie about grief. I was back to thinking about my Chiky, but it felt different. I thought this idea would lend itself to have some comedy to it, with it's kind of absurd premise and with what I had in mind with the cashier, I'd be able to dabble in the motions of grief, but not sink into it allowing me to have fun while making.

With that I felt I had enough to scrap my initial third idea and throw this new one into the ring along with the first two ideas. After discussing with my professors and thinking about which film would be logistically within scope while also being something challenging yet fun to write and direct, I landed on a story that would follow someone going to an Antique store to retrieve an Urn with their dead dog's ashes.

Over the next two months, I would go on to draft and re-draft. We'd hold table reads with my F1 group one week, switch it up the following with people from other F1 groups, one-on-one meetings with my teachers, I'd talk with my roommate John Brown about my script, and of course talk with Sam too. Each discussion gave me a little bit more to work with and allowed me to gauge which moments garnered reactions and which parts needed more work.

The most obvious challenge I had with this script was pertaining to the two page maximum. I also struggled when it came to balancing the different tones I wanted to touch on whether it be comedic or more serious. I'm overall pretty happy with the script and had a lot of fun writing the characters and the story. Compared to the pieces I've written previous, I feel it leans in an odd but interesting direction I want to keep exploring.