Rook Studios Presents…

Along with going against what a stereotypical couple usually is, we also went against how a romance film should look. During our genre research, we saw that many romance films have very ‘flat’ shots. They were very level, and to me, had barely any visual interest. Any visual interest came from mis en scene. We wanted to shoot a film that would be visually interesting. I had also made it a goal to use more interesting shots and transitions. Many romance scenes looked like the stills to the left, very flat, with both people very close to each other. Our cinematographer wanted to take inspiration from a series outside of our genre: Arcane. The series does contain a (not completely confirmed) WLW romance, but that’s not its main point. Aside from being LGBTQ+, both Vi and Caitlyn have character development, importance to the plot, and a mission, goals they want to accomplish. This point was also brought up earlier during research.   Our cinematographer also wanted to include shots from...

First off, we wanted a romance. The one thing we knew off the bat was no, we are not going to be writing a straight romance. The romance genre is dominated by straight relationships, so we wanted to do something different.  After we recasted our actors, we had an interracial couple. This is also not as common, the genre (and this applies to other genres) use white characters as leads. Our couple challenged that convention of ‘straight white couple.’ Our non-binary character Adrian also challenges conventions.  They are a more feminine presenting person. However, their femininity does not invalidate their identity as a non-binary person. I wanted to stress this in the film. I thought the easiest way to do this was to have them dress more feminine, but also establish their identity as a non-female person. We pinned a non-binary pin to their bag, which is visible in the first few seconds of film.  I’m proud of Adrian’s characterization on the film. It was also a nice way to ...

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The rough cuts that were created using Picsart^ Part 2 can be found in the next post!