Acting as an individual in the domain of screenwriting, it was my job to collate all the knowledge that I had of that domain and turn that into the document that would be made into ‘Brace’. I had read around ten or so screenplays, written less than five, and read and listened to a handful of classes and teachings on screenwriting before embarking on the script. So, while I was not new to the art entirely, there was much to be desired in my knowledge of the domain. However, this is when other domains have come to assist my learning. I have been heavily engrossed in films since a young age and have rated 555 films on IMDB (so I’d assume I’ve seen double that, since I don’t rate every movie I see). I have also made a bunch of films in my life. Moreover, I love literature too. I have written around twenty short stories and read countless more, as well as the odd novel here and there. These two domains are closely related to the domain of screenwriting, as they share common languages. 

So, for instance, the narrative of ‘Brace’ was originally intended to be a short story, and was even written somewhat as such. And once I knew that it was going to be written for the screen, I began to watch similar films that would get me in the mindset, various family dramas – Ordinary People (1980), Wildlife (2018), Fences (2016), Manchester by the Sea (2016), Kramer s. Kramer (1979) – which were invaluable for characterisation and structure. However, as mentioned earlier, these films all have two or so hours to develop and explore their characters, but I had twelve minutes. It sounds ludicrous to me now that I even attempted to write a short film with four characters that all need to be either liked or disliked all in twelve minutes while also trying to tell a complete story, but I did it anyway. And the results are on the screen, and there are positives and negatives with characterisation and narrative. But I made the initial mistake of treating the script as if it were a feature film, as if it were one hundred pages instead of ten or so. Imagine Manchester by the Sea as a ten-minute film… it would be a shell of itself. So, what started as a script that imitated these big dramas – one that followed the conventions, one that had a tight narrative arc – became (in the edit) more of a moment in time, a vignette. The resolution was cut because it was not a story that was worthy of a resolution, since it was just a small bit of a larger story, as if in Kramer vs. Kramer it started with the son and father, the father sacrificing his career for his son, and then the climax, the father doing everything he can to keep his son. Would the film be as powerful? No. But would it be a beautiful vignette of a father’s love for his son? Sure. It would be just divine. In fact, I think the actual film has too much fat as is, but unfortunately, it is impossible to create such stakes and to elicit such emotion in such a small amount of time, especially when telling a multi-faceted narrative that makes sense simultaneously. 

So, our film, originally titled ‘Nothing Else Matters’, as a bittersweet ode to the silver-lining (original) ending, became ‘Brace’, because the narrative changed – we simply didn’t have the foundations in place to pull off something bittersweet without it being forced – so it became just bitter, and we all knew that it was just right like that. And that’s when I first realised that I was wrong to think that a short film script needed to follow the structure of a feature film, that it needed these things that made it resemble a feature film. When we cut two full scenes from the film, I recall turning to the editor and, without him knowing this beforehand, saying “those were my two least favorite scenes, both scenes were the last added cause I thought it would make the script more complete”. Simply, those two scenes were a result of me listening to the field too much, following the rule setters, and listening to the formula makers. ‘Ten things that producers look for in  your script’ type articles and videos. Those sort of sources that tell you what has to happen on what page. Yet, in retrospect, the most powerful short films I have seen, and the most powerful short stories, rarely follow classical narrative act structures or character arcs. In this case, I followed the field and what they deemed worthy of novelty instead of simply looking at what was already in the domain and going from there. I should have been watching short films and engrossing myself in the types of narratives I was trying to emulate, instead of looking at the wrong things, listening to the wrong individuals. Basing a short film off of feature films or how you should structure a feature film is akin to learning table tennis by watching Rodger Federer’s highlights or listening to tennis instructors. It might help, but it sure as hell won’t prepare you to return that little white ball cannoning at you from across the table. 

Without being one of the individuals that want to tell you how it is done, I want to tell you what I learned from ‘Brace’. I learned that, in the writing of it, in the filming, and in the editing, there is no formula for success and looking for one is the wrong direction to take. A short film can be one moment in time or it can be a whole life; it can be about a chair, or it could be about a famous rockstar. The best thing to do is to know your crew and know your audience; know your field and your domain. And I don’t like to admit that there is any sort of logistics involved with the writing process, but you should know what you have to work with. If you have a really good actor at hand, write a role for them; if your director is really bad with directing actors, have fewer actors; if you don’t have access to a bank, don’t write a scene that takes place in a bank. You have to express yourself, but don’t forget to make it easier on your crew, don’t forget to write to their strengths too, don’t forget to make it achievable. All that may seem wrong to some, but every time we shot something, I thought about how I could have made that scene easier, how that scene could have been done with half the dialogue, or how it could have been more cinematic for my cinematographer to have fun with, or how it could have taken place in the day instead of night, or indoors instead of out in the rain. These are all little things you have to think about when you are shooting without a budget and without very experienced actors.