The Girl in Blue

7- The Girl Collaborates

Lana

"What do you see when you look at that picture?" Levi asks me on Tuesday as we start finding our groove in our planning room off of the film studio. We met for lunch and then walked together to the art building where the studio is so that we can start planning this film.

We have the painting printed out and taped onto the top of a white board at the front of the small planning room and I stare at it, trying to answer his question as honestly as possible. "I see a girl... she's feeling like she either loves something inside of that house or she's running away from something behind her. Either way, she really wants to be at that house."

"I agree," Levi nods. "I think the hardest question we have to answer is why she's just sitting in the field instead of just standing up and going to the house. Why is she just sitting in a field at all?"

"She could be lost," I suggest.

"She could be breaking down," He adds. "You know? So sad that your legs just physically can't hold you up anymore. She was walking through the field and it just hits her and she goes down."

"I like that," I say, smiling now as I see an idea of a plot forming as we're brainstorming this.

"What makes a person that sad?" Levi adds another question that needs answering.

"Losing somebody that they love," I respond automatically. "Losing something that they love. But I feel like the way that she's leaning still has hope, like she's broken but there's still something in that house that she wants."

"Are we about to do a sad romance story?" He asks me.

"Is that too cheesy?" I ask him in return. "Because it doesn't have to be romance, it could be a family or a friend type of love. It's been a while since I've done a romance though and I think that we could really pull it off, if you'd be cool with that."

"Yeah, I'm cool with that," He assures me. "A love story with a sad ending... or not ending, that could be the beginning. This shot though, of the girl sitting in the field, I think that it needs to be at the beginning or end to give it emphasis."

"Right," I agree with him. "I'm feeling pessimistic so I think a sad story would be fun. Unless you want to really get in touch with your sensitive side and start sad and go happy."

"Please," He scoffs jokingly. "I'm always in touch with my sensitive side. But it's always fun to make people cry with a sad ending."

"Your films make people cry?" I wonder curiously as I stand up and grab a white board marker from the metallic ledge at the bottom of the board. Next to the printed out painting, I scribble down all of our brainstorming so far so that it's not forgotten later. "I haven't had time to get to your portfolio."

"Not all of them," He justifies. "But I have a few good ones in there. When I get drunk, I get very sappy and I just start writing really sappy crap."

"That's amazing," I say with an amused laugh and I should say something relatable to that but the thing that I think to say is that I do my best writing right after sex and I don't think that's appropriate for this being only the second time that I've talked to this guy. "I guess we'll just have to be drunk for the entire duration of this project."

"It's a sacrifice that I'm willing to take," He jokes in response.

"Okay, so the two big questions are," I start writing these two questions on the white board. "What is in that house that is giving her hope? Or yearning? And what is it that hurt her so badly?"