Story Outline and Film Opening Approach

(THIS IS ALL BOUND TO CHANGE AND PROBABLY WILL BUT HOPEFULLY WON'T)

    The film opening will be done with only two shots.

    The first shot will be on this bleak, desolate auditorium. It is very clean and professional, but empty. A spotlight will reveal a chorus teacher and his students practicing for an upcoming competition. Everyone is dressed in black, and you can tell that they are all very serious about this. Similar to the Annette scene (Check Annette blog post), there will be a slow camera circulating the conductor. In this film, he is the main character. Throughout this whole first shot, the chorus is repeatedly chanting the bridge in their new piece they're working on. As the camera turns to the 2nd half of this "sphere," the students comes into frame. The group explodes into the song's chorus, filled with harmonies and passion. After a full rotation around the class, the camera zooms into the conductor's content eyes.

    Around the 0:45-1:00 mark, everything changes. With the same close up of the conductor's eyes, the film transports into the real world. The once happy eyes of the chorus teacher are now tired. The beautiful performance in the dream sequence is replaced by all the annoyance of high school chatter. The camera zooms out and begins to rotate around the conductor again. Every single student is either completely unfocused or terribly untalented. There will be arguments and laughter and yelling (similar to the dialogue used in The Bear excerpt used in the One-Shot blog post), all while the chorus teacher tries to quiet everyone down and focus. After another full rotation, the camera settles back on the chorus teachers face. The school bell rings and a quick pan to it ends the scene. This is the exhaustion that the chorus teacher must go through every day in class.

    I think I have a very simple story. There is a very clear beginning and end to the piece. The opening will establish the weary tone of the film and will introduce the situation the chorus teacher is in. I am hoping that the audience will feel for the chorus teacher and his dreams of having an attentive, gifted class. If the film were to continue, it would be about this mentor relationship between the chorus teacher and a specific student who shows how gifted he is amongst a class of losers. Thinking on the spot, the full movie's tone could probably align with this 2006 television movie called The Ron Clark Story, starring Matthew Perry. My film would be a bit more imaginative, like we see in the opening sequence, but would have all the same small-town drama as the Randa Haines film.