The Better Half
The film that has critics raving: "--Wwwhy is there a lesbian subplot?!"
Lauren Taylor (Carrie) and Minnie Knight (Avery).
Lauren is now a lawyer. You're welcome, Lauren.
Andrew Murphy as Elijah.
Andrew Murphy as Elijah.
Austin Halvorsen as the waiter at Squawky's.
Andrew Murphy as Elijah.
We rented a theatre for the premiere, and then it got screened in-theatre for the film festival, to a delightfully great audience who laughed at all the moments one would hope.
Open DOCX ↗
I presented this project to my class as a capstone topic. Early on in the discussion, while determined not to give away critical plot details, I recreated the environment of a writers room by sharing some early ideas and getting audience feedback.
Open DOCX ↗
This was the first document I wrote related to TBH: a list of romcom tropes gleaned from my research, and loose visuals & ideas around the topic that were floating in my brain.
Inspiration
Romcoms are hilarious. I sort of want to resent them for all the reasons in Angus & Julia Stone's song "Hollywood", but they keep me crawling back for more. You know, though, I'm also a realist. "So let's make it realistic," I says to myself...
So I wrote the script, art directed, storyboarded, drafted the casting call and my steadfast coconspirator, longsuffering producer, ambitious cinematographer & genius editor Adam agreed, and contributed at least 50% to helping make the rest of it happen.
What I learned
Sometimes the simplest looking scenes take an indecent amount of staging. That's useful to craft uniform visual language throughout a production, especially when jump cuts will be a factor in the final edit. Unless one is maximizing the handheld, realtime veritas in 'cinema veritas' fashion, producing the illusion of normalcy for film actually demands a hyperreal construction behind the scenes. Don't assume what appears 'vanilla' to the viewer will be, in any way, vanilla to shoot.
What went right
Our actors. I love our actors. All our production team. Adam & Lauren are especially the impeccable to work with, and I say that explicitly because they were the most involved. But this was overall the best team I've ever collaborated with on any project, ever, and that's a tall order because other teams have also been incredible.
Challenges
The greenscreen.
Audio capture wasn't uniformly great. Adam did the best anyone could with it in post & we never made those mic mistakes again.
Awards
Best Comedy | Ashland Film Festival (2015).
Collaborators
- Adam Borrego — Editor, Co-Director, Cinematographer, Organizer & Scheduler
- Lauren Taylor — Carrie Avis
- Andrew Murphy — Elijah Jones
- Dominique (Minnie) Knight — Avery
- Angela Hernandez — Therese
- Ethan Hennes — Narrator
- Michael Meyer — Dr. Thrasymachus, Avian Studies PhD
- Katie Blank, Sophia Louisa Miller, Emily Stavneak, Annie Murrell, Kelsey Goldman, Reilly Nycum, and Olivia Sastry — Carrie's Party Friends
- Weston Sarver, Alex Giorgi — Elijah's Buddies
- Regina Ayars — Carrie's Mom
- David Bruce — Carrie's Dad
- Ethan Hennes — Floor Manager
- Tyler Teich — Studio Grip
- Alex Desjardin — Studio Camera Operator
- Jimmy Leavens — Studio Executive
- Madelyn Frye — News Anchor
- Elijah Anderson-Justis — Chad
- Lia Dugal — Janice
- Alex Giorgi — Ted
- Sherry Grimes, Gannon O'Gorman — Meeting Attendees
- Alex Desjardin — Dead Body
- Declan Straub — Bike Rider
- Austin Halvorsen — Jamal (Squawky's Waiter)
Further reading
- CreativeWriter.com's Very Detailed Non-Visual Guide to Writing Misc. Types of Scripts & Treatments for Production Workflow ↗
- SimplyScript's Guide to Script Treatments ↗
- ScriptMag's Non-visual Breakdown of Hollywood Narrative Script Treatment ↗
- NB Film Co-Op's Long Non-Visual Guide to Writing A Professional Narrative Treatment ↗
- NoFilmSchool's Visual Guide to Writing A Professional Narrative Treatment ↗
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