Topic
Rather than going with a fantastical or horror focused topic for my monologue, like the majority of my projects, I decided to create a more down to earth piece. My monologue is a conversation between two ordinary people about the difficulty of pursuing creative careers in the modern day. To accentuate the realist take on the project, this monologue takes place in a public bathroom while the two characters are cleaning it as a part of their jobs.
Target Audience
The target audience for this piece are university students, specifically those working towards bachelors for creative topics while balancing part time jobs to support their studies. I want my monologue to resonate with this demographic by broaching subjects such as free time, financial struggles and – seemingly – fanciful dreams of the future. Belonging to this age range myself, it felt like honing in on this audience made the most sense.
Inspiration
The inspiration for this monologue from a real-life conversation I had just a couple of months ago. I work a bartending job and one of the responsibilities that comes with it is cleaning up after customers when the pub closes. After a hectic shift on christmas eve, I helped one of my managers clean the men’s toilets where – despite unpleasant work – we ended up having a surprisingly heartfelt conversation about our hobbies. I have used this conversation as the basis of my message and the ‘plot’ for my monologue.
After deciding on this topic, monologues from my research such as Pulp Fiction and Little Women were pieces that I found myself returning to more regularly for inspiration thanks to their realistic topics and more down to earth nature when compared to the rest of the examples I looked at.
Plot Breakdown
Beginning – The start of my piece opens with a shot of my two characters (Ashe and Joel) talking while they clean. I felt that starting with a more typical back and forth style of conversation was a more natural start to my piece that would eventually transition into the monologue.
Middle – The middle of my piece is the monologue itself. The camera pans into a close up of Joel as they pour out their conflicted feelings and worries related to the central topic.
End – My monologue ends with a lengthy pause before Ashe asks Joel to help them with something not acknowledging Joel monologue; leaving it up to interpretation whether or not they said it out loud or just thought it.
Production
The idea that my monologue would be framed around a conversation between two characters was an idea that came early on in my project development. Filming my monologue as a montage just wouldn’t fit this style, so it felt important to shoot it with actors in a real location. I plan on collaborating with other students and filming on the college campus to create my monologue.
Witchers and Witches 