Working on the third draft of Night Shift this week has not only been very productive creatively, but it has also been revealing in what I have discovered about myself as a writer and the way in which I tell my stories for screen. In particular, my use of visual metaphor within the script to encourage metaphorical insight in the viewer.

Windows, mirrors, glass is a motif I have used before in my writing. Though up until now, I have not given much thought to how and why I might be using it in my screenwriting. The motif appears throughout the script, at key moments within the story:

    • a woman looks through an office window;
    • a woman sees her reflection in a mirror;
    • a woman stands in a shop doorway, framed by a large window;
    • a woman breaks a glass bottle;

An arrangement of recurring images, inserted subconsciously as I assembled the rough draft.

What strikes me about this is not so much the fact that I have, once again, drawn upon this motif in my writing, but the effect it appears to have within this particular screenplay. Deciding to redraft the script from a purely visual perspective enabled me to engage with the story at a cinematic level, to redraft it with my mind’s eye, as it were.

Cumulatively, these images of the woman and windows, mirrors, glass, build up into a composite portrait of a young woman trapped, struggling to break free. The image develops over time (Carroll 2001: 352) through repetition and variation, leaving a subliminal impression upon the viewer’s imagination. The motif of ‘window, mirror, glass’ is being used as a way of prompting insight within the viewer, rather than stating it in language (Carroll 2001: 365).

After pondering the windows, mirrors, glass motif within Night Shift, I have discovered a meaning within the story that hadn’t occurred to me as I was drafting the script: that Lanya is confined, hermetically sealed within her own glass bubble. She may feel safe within her bubble. But in the end, she must break the glass and set herself free.

 

References

CARROL, Noel. 2001. Beyond Aesthetics: Philosophical Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press