Initial Brainstorm

Short film idea: about a man who finds his tears

I was inspired by the books ‘A Man Called Ove’ by Fredrik Backman and ‘The Five People You Meet in Heaven’/ ‘The Next Person You Meet in Heaven’ by Mitch Albom. All stories are about self-discovery and showing how feeling/expressing our feelings is more beneficial for our mental health compared to bottling it up in the long run. About how impactful other people's or our own words or actions can be in our lives, even if we don’t realise it, especially when we don’t realise it.

The concept of this story was also inspired by this quote from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: “It’s hard opening your heart. It makes you vulnerable, but it doesn’t make you weak and, in the end, I have to believe it’s worth it.”

I really wanted to experiment and play on the phrase ‘boys don’t cry’. I want my main character to be an older male with flashbacks to him as a child being told that phrase or to ‘toughen up’. I wanted to explore the idea of how gender roles impact males, especially in ones where the traditional gender roles were so reinforced it becomes subconscious and an automatic response.

I wanted to incorporate scenes like ones in a funeral, birthday party, wedding, etc, where our main character doesn’t cry, no matter how emotional he gets. Playing into the idea that it’s always more heart wrenching to see our father cry/crying doesn’t always necessarily mean sadness.

Another inspiration is a scene from Modern Family where the family is doing a group therapy session, and Jay talks about his father, about how guilty he was for not being able to cry at his father’s funeral. A line that stuck with me was when he said, “Feelings! I didn't even cry at his funeral. You believe that? The guy was my whole world. Not a tear. Everybody looking at me like, like I didn't love him. But he knew. He had to know, right?” His voice breaking and softening in the last sentence. Jay being the character which upholds traditionally masculine views breaking down and crying makes the scene just that much more emotional and sadder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwRJU2ZKt8s

The film has quite an abstract concept and may be surrealist in some ways, making it more of an indie/art-house style film. I wanted to mix in some other mediums such as mixed media animation or just animation to showcase that. With the scene of him finally finding his tears being one where it’s like a mixed media montage with bright colours and bold expressions, showing his relief and joy. An inspiration being ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ in terms of how they mix mediums.

I think it would also be interesting to explore how tears don’t always have to connote with being sad or upset, in fact it can be associated with relief or even joy.