"Gay and Alone"

Joseph Farley is a (somewhat unconventionally) normal 16-year-old boy.  He's nerdy, introverted, private.  Joseph doesn't have many friends, but he's okay with that.  He's never been the social type, preferring instead the comfort of his own reserved group of friends.  Joseph was born into an Evangelical Christian family, a religion that, while many around him rejected, he embraced.  To him, going to church was less of a chore than a moral obligation.  He believed in God, worshipped the word of the bible, and prayed daily.  

However, conflict arises when Joseph's sexuality comes into question.  After having a brief romantic encounter with another boy, Joe's family is left with no choice but to send him to anti-gay conversion therapy.  This is where the film will begin.

Creating the character of Joseph wasn't too hard.  Due to his religious background, I thought it would be obvious for him to have a biblical name.  After some serious researching (I even asked the Christian girl in my math class for her opinions), I was left to choose between Adam, Jonah, John, Matthew, and Joseph.  After narrowing it down to just Matthew and Joseph, I ended up decided on the latter (it had a nicer ring to it, and it wasn't too douche-y).  Using this last name generator, I narrowed down my options for Joe's last name to these three:

• Joseph Farley
• Joseph Brewer
• Joseph Garner

I ended up going with Farley, although I might change this later on during the production process.  

Ironically, Joseph is also the name of my friend who I have decided to cast in my production.  I'm not too convinced about his acting skills, but he does owe me a favor, and he matches the mental image I have of the character.  Yet, Joey (my friend, not the protagonist) is unlike 'movie Joseph' in basically every aspect apart from looks.  I fear that this might prove to be a bigger problem when it comes to filming, but we'll deal with that when it comes time.

Asking Joey to take on the role of a gay character took less convincing than I originally planned it would (toxic masculinity loses yet again!).  Instead, Joe's biggest concern seemed to be that of who will play his boyfriend.  When I informed him that the character doesn't have one, he said, and I quote, "Duuuude, I'm gay and alone?"  Absurdly, I thought that was a pretty good summary of Joseph's character.  

However, "gay and alone" doesn't quite lead one to a full understanding of character background, motivation, fears, inspirations, etc.  So, I began working on a mood board instead.  Mood boards are visual collages that help develop character, mood, background, setting, and more.  Here are two that I made for a previous project that I quite like:

When thinking of Joseph, I focused on the conflict between his personal life and his belief-set.  For his background, I wanted to include religious symbols as well as a picture of the American suburbs, which is where Joseph is from.  By splitting the background into these two images, I wanted to emphasize the division inside of Joe.  On one side, he is his authentic self, but on the other he is forced to change due to cultural norms.  As a bonus, I used a picture of young boy that I found on Pinterest, as I thought that it went well with the theme of euphoric childhood evolving into troubled adolescence.  Here is the finished product:

Joseph Farley mood board