An Impossible Dream is a short film centered around a dialogue between a Father and Son. The Son wants to go to medical school and the Father wants him to become an artist. The tension exchange between the two climaxes to a dramatic dialogue delivered by the Father.
I made An Impossible Dream because it was a story premise that I was excited about and because I wanted to gain more filmmaking experience. The last major film project I worked on (”Shadows Walk First”) had no dialogue, and this project was all dialogue.
This is the largest production I self-produced from the beginning to the end. There were many firsts while making this film:
I learned a lot about what a director has range or power to do while on set. A silly one for example… you don’t have to cut to do another take, you can just keeping rolling and ask the actors to run it again. Doing a whole other cut and take, takes a long time to set up. I legitimately did not know that before.
There is a moment when you are directing where you realize it’s all eyes and ears on you. Thirteen people in the room are waiting for your word. The thought of this always overwhelmed me but when on set and actually in it, I felt like I was in a flow state and just kept rolling with it.
For my next film, I want to include more physical action as well as more camera movement. Maybe some kind of fight scene or something.
More Takeaways and learnings below.
I’m exploring rupture (On Rupture) as a storytelling device. To me, rupture is when we set rules and expectations at the start of a story and then break them. When rupture is done well, audiences are suspended for the rest of the experience. They can no longer trust their own instincts, they can no longer watch in comfort.
In An Impossible Dream, there a few moments of rupture:
| Expectations | Rupture | Rupture on a… |
|---|---|---|
| This is just another immigrant story trope… | It’s flipped: Son wants to go to medical school, Dad wants him to become an artist. | Concept-level: It goes against a popular trope and trend. |
| I am watching a narrative short film… | Dad enters a theater-like abstract void. | Genre-level: It disrupts expectations of realism in film. |
| This is just a sketch and the gag is the story reversal... | Dad delivers an unusually long and powerful monologue done in one unbroken shot. | Story-level: It elevates the piece from a one-off gag to a strong performance based in sincerity. |