The Rocky Road to Truth

Since I want this blog to primarily be a place where people can view my work, I'm going to start posting things I've worked on or am currently working on. These posts will not be everyday, but I'll to do them as often as I can.

That being said, my first post on one of my projects is a film I made last semester for my film class called The Rocky Road to Truth. It is a story about a university student who discovers his friend has gone missing and sets out following a series of clues and witnesses to discover where is missing friend is, and what happened to him.


More after the break.






The following information contains spoilers, do not read on unless you wish to have plot points revealed, or until you have finished viewing the film.



First off, I have had many viewers not understand the film, even though it seems fairly simple to me. Rocky, in case you didn't realise it, is a personification of the ice cream Rocky Road. Several hints are laid down throughout the film, yet still I have had people not realise what he is. The first hint is in the title, "Rocky Road", the second is in Joe's opening monologue, "I just wanted to go home, relax, and eat my ice cream", or how about Joe's line when interrogating Sami "A certain Road went missing, goes by the name, Rocky." Even if people didn't pick up on those hints, that's okay, but the ending where Joe runs to the new box of Rocky Road ice cream, or the credits that show the party scene only with ice cream instead of the person, you'd think that people would get it by then, right? So my point being, Rocky is ice cream. Why you ask? Cause it's ridiculous.

The idea behind the film was slightly different than what came out of it. Originally everyone thought that Rocky was a person and that each person saw Rocky differently. But that would have required more of a cast, and not many people were willing to act for me, so I scrapped that idea in favour of one Rocky Road persona. Also in the original script, Joe thought of Rocky as ice cream, so he always said "Rocky Road" instead of just "Rocky". However that change, I felt, made the idea of Rocky being a personification of ice cream to be more of a challenge for the viewers to see. Apparently too challenging for some though.

As stated above, I had problems getting actors for my film. There are four Ashley's in my film, who are a direct reference the the Ashley's from the show Recess, however, I have two girls playing two Ashley's each. That is a bit confusing, but I had hoped that the change in costume would help make the point that they are different people more understandable.

I hope that viewers enjoyed the few references to other films or aspects of films that I included. The Ashley's would be one, the Wilhelm Scream at the seven minute marker, the line in the opening narration "It was long and drawn out, like not enough butter scraped over too much bread." which is a line from Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings, the part where Joe breaks the fourth wall "Yeah, they actually talk like that.".

Originally I had planned to use the song "Happy Together" by The Turtles starting at the part where Joe runs to the new box of ice cream, and playing through to the end of the credits. Unfortunately I was unable to get the rights to use the song, so I had to go with something else. Though thinking back on it, Weird Al's "I love Rocky Road" would have been perfect for the film.