Final Essay for Dimensions in Creativity

TJ Ohler

Love Waits:

Diving into Character

When I started this class, I had no idea how to take it. How many times does someone get the opportunity to learn from four different teachers about various subjects of creativity? Still, I was not sure what I would be learning over the course of three in a half months, yet I was excited about learning about “making movies” through different creative venues. In that way, I was open to anything that came my way. I think it was this idea of keeping an open mind that allowed me to successfully write my blogs, create some new, interesting ideas, and finally come out with my first movie ever. As a Writing for Film and Television major, I thought that writing would be mostly what I would deal with, but I have been surprised by the interconnectedness of film. Each and every aspect of a film must be considered for a movie to be good. For Dimensions, ideation, sound, performance, and visualization all held different meanings in my eyes, but in the end without one, the others will likely fall apart. It is for this reason that I believe, my final project with Bret Turley and Alex Whitman came together, slightly to my surprise, quite well. I am proud to call Love Waits my first film ever.

For me, words have always been a love of mine, but for this movie it felt that dialogue wasn’t necessarily needed for the film. It took some convincing at first but eventually I realized that the movie could even be more powerful without words in it. In this way, I hope that the movie successfully pulls that off. This leads me to the ideation. Thought dialogue is a part of ideation, I know that it is more about the creation of ideas or concepts as presented to us by Jean with her use of the Bayeux Tapestry and other creative sources. I realized that the process of ideation referred more to the thought process or the “why” you create something. This is something I considered widely in the project. Now, I haven’t mentioned the subject matter of Love Waits, but usually that’s because the initial reaction is one of hesitance. The short film involves a young college student meeting a boy and then being raped by said boy. A large portion of the movie takes place after the rape with the lead character, “Vanessa” (though anonymous to the viewers her name is in the script), who is showering fully clothed. She is broken. Why shoot a film about rape? I didn’t know at first. I questioned why I wanted to try and show this on the screen. I doubted the concept, the idea because of how serious the content. I feared not portraying the situation in a serious or heartfelt light. I almost didn’t go through with making the movie, but luckily I had the support of friends to back me up even after all the “what the fuck are you doing that for?” looks I received. I hoped that the movie’s idea and the severity of the situation would come across as something real, maybe not completely new but real and powerful.

Sound. Oh sound, I think this was probably one of the roughest tasks. What really fits when there is no dialogue. I had no idea what to put in the film. I almost wanted to put Christmas music so that it would add a happy, yet ominous feel to the film. That did not feel right though. Luckily, Bret found the answer for the problem, one that I think fit perfectly with the overall tone of the movie. The short begins with a hallway scene. In it, the ringing (tuning fork noise) plays as Vanessa walks down a blurred hallway. Then there is the sound that plagues the audience through a lot of the film, the sound of the shower. The water hitting the ground. It was quite uncomfortable to listen to at times. This whole effect is also added with the sound of the heartbeat that plays through portions of the movie as well. It really makes it powerful. Sound is what puts all the visuals together and makes the movie even better, especially with pacing. Also, the lack of sound (or of certain sounds) makes the scene stronger as well. At one point, the action cuts from Vanessa laughing after meeting Marc for the first time to her crying in the shower. Though originally with crying, we cut the sound to make her crying more pronounced. In this way, sound can be powerful and beautiful in ways I never really noticed before. I always thought it was just there in the movie, but I have come to realize how wrong that idea is. It takes work to make sound as powerful as I hope it turned out in the movie.

Meanwhile, the visuals of the movies also played a key role in how the movie was perceived. We spent some (or a lot) of time talking about what would look best on screen. Originally we wanted to add red that would emphasis the situation, but after a long discussion we decided how much more powerful it would be to go more simple. Simple is better sometimes.  In class we played with lighting and saw how that could effect a scene. We used blue and red for gels, and in some way this inspired the blue seen in the movie. The “blue” of the room emphasizes the emotion of the scene in a way that I did not know lighting could do. I always wondered why natural lighting doesn’t work, but by seeing how different that blue lightning gave to the bathroom compared to no lightning I really changed my opinion. Throughout the movie, we showed Marc (Michael Kelly) in more darker entrances, as with the common room scene. Also, we tried to contrast the rape scene with the bathroom by using two different lightning gels, one blue and one orange. It created a great contrast for the movie. Other visuals include  the wardrobe and props of the film. We had Vanessa (Kathy Dorn) wearing blue in every scene. For us, the lightness of the color represented purity for her. Meanwhile Marc either dressed in black or white to show his twisted nature, good/fake side vs. bad/hidden side. This contrast emphasizes his intent. The novel scene in the common room entitled Speak also throws back to emphasize the story. The novel written by Laurie Hales Anderson tells a story about a girl who is raped at a friend’s high school party. After the event the calls the police but is unable to tell them what happened. Everyone thinks she called the police to ruin the party, so they alienate her. Then she stops speaking. I think this ties into the movie significantly with how important it is to tell someone what happened or at least call a helpline of some sort. Just speak. Finally, one of the most import symbols in the movie involves the purity ring that Vanessa wears. It represents her naivety and hopes of finding Mr. Right and waiting until the right person comes along to give herself to. When she drops the ring at the end of the movie, it shows the loss that has grabbed her by the heart. In this way, it can even hold as a symbol for Love Waits, especially seeing as the words are engraved in the ring. 

Now, I don’t have much to say about performance, except that it needs to be near perfect for all the other parts of creativity to come together and become something more. In this way, Kathy and Marc really pulled it off together. Without their great acting, the movie would NOT have come close to the quality it did. Plus, I developed a whole new appreciation for working with actors. They really should have a say about the movie. We really took that in consideration. Some of the shots (the last shot) was fought for by Kathy and I think it was a stronger ending than just the sound of the ring falling to the ground. Also, I also loved working with Kathy and helping her get into character. Just talking to her about what we wanted and how I thought Vanessa would feel was one of my favorite parts of the movie. Without performance (and the performers), Love Waits would not have been possible.

Many other little details went into this movie, but most of all I think editing was one of the most important. It allowed for all the dimensions in creativity to combine into one and form the final product. From jump cuts, cross fades to carrying action and emotion through, the effect of the film was more than I could have hoped for when I thought of it in the shower. Ideation worked to create the idea, sound worked to finish the tone and pace of the movie, visualization allowed for the emotions to come through on screen, and performance allowed for everything to be believable and heartfelt. At least that’s how I feel. For me, I will always remember and adore that Love Waits was the first short film I ever worked on, and I know many more are going to follow.