Character analysis and casting

    BREAKING NEWS!

    WE HAVE A CAST!! A few nights ago I talked to Diana, and asked if she was interested in being a part of my short film. I have known Diana since 2023, where we performed a school musical together. I think she'd be a good pick because I can trust that she will take the role seriously. The only problem with her casting, is that she is not very available for filming. I will be off on spring break as of the 22nd, so Diana will be traveling. Here is the conversation I had with her. 

So Diana will be playing the mother, and Martin will be playing Lucas. I wrote a character analysis on the mother and on Lucas, so that the two would have something to work off of when acting.

LUCAS is a 16 year old boy, who lost his biggest supporter a year ago. His older brother Nic, age 18, has been with him through everything.  The little letters Nic would leave for him with encouraging words, inside jokes, playful lines, or reminding him of how much he is loved, helped him through his day. He saved every last one in a little box that he then kept in his desk, out of sight after he died. For a while after Nic died, Lucas would revisit that box and read the letters at night until he exhausted himself from crying and would fall asleep. Lucas is in the middle of high school, a pivotal point in his development. His mother shut herself down, and he followed her example, cutting out his friends, isolating himself. He feels the pain of isolation, of never having processed his grief, anger, sadness, every moment; yet he pushes them down out of fear of breaking down completely, and tries to forget the memories of his brother. Said by Empathy.com, “This is a common response to intense experiences known as crisis fatigue. The body responds to severe stress by releasing adrenaline and other stress hormones. When the crisis has passed, this high-energy situation will have fatigued your system.” Confronting his grief will destroy the time he’s spent trying to push it down just to keep himself sane. What once was a soothing memory to get him to fall asleep, is not a blackened and cold part of him he tries so hard to forget. He also knows if he does break down, his mother won’t be able to be there for him, just as he can’t be there for her. 

The reappearances of the letters from Nic are exactly what it takes to break him apart. He doesn’t understand where they’re coming from, but he cares more about just keeping away, keeping the memories and mourning at bay. He is even more freaked out when he sees the new notes written, and realizing that it was his mom this whole time, with all the notes past written, he is overwhelmed by the memories and the sorrow. In the end, he sees the pain in his mothers eyes, and fully sees her for the first time since before Nic died, and realizes they’ve been going through the same thing. He realizes she needs him just as much as he needs her.

MOTHER is the single parent of two boys. Lucas is 16, and Nic was 18 when he passed away of causes unknown to the audience. She loves her sons more than anything, and the death of her first born felt like a shot in the heart. She loves her sons equally, but losing one of them took over her entire life, feeling like her very soul has been ripped out of her. She feels disgusted and angered by fate and injustice, but more than anything she wishes she could have done more to help him, that she could have saved him. She isn’t even sure she can survive the grief. While Lucas is able to ignore his pain to numb himself, she found that the only thing that numbs the pain is by drinking until she can barely even remember her evening. It doesn’t matter what time it is, the second she starts to feel it, she opens a bottle.

This process has worked for months, but when she stumbles on a note written by Nic to her, the agony hits her like a truck. She finds the letters Lucas saved from Nic, and sets one on his desk. She isn’t sure why she did it, but it was because she subconsciously knows Lucas needs a push to take him out of the dark place they are both in. They both need it. She drinks herself numb that night, but now even the liquor cant suppress the can of emotions she’s opened. She writes down notes similar to Nic’s to Lucas, and puts some of them in his lunch for the next day. She can’t communicate with her son, but Nic has always shared his real emotion and love through his notes, so she uses his method. The notes are a way to reach out, a way of communicating her pain.

While Lucas is at school the next day, she wakes up sober and instead of working or drinking to cope with the dreams of her family once whole, she rereads the notes again, and starts scribbling down more notes, some even to Nic. She falls asleep to this. 

Later she wakes up to the sound of a door slamming shut. Realizing Lucas has come home and probably seen her mess, she decides to see if he’s okay, but finds him on the floor of his room, breathing heavily, eyes squeezed shut, panicked. The memory of Nic’s death floods back and she panics, reaching for Lucas, shaking him, yelling her sons name. It’s irrational, but she can’t lose another son. When he looks into her eyes, she knows she’s been wrong this entire time. Her son needs her, and she needs her son. They reconnect.