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Current Progress on the Big Video (Beekeeper) (Patreon)

Published:
2023-10-01 19:16:49
Imported:
2026-06
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Files

Previews only

Supervideo (Bees) prologue, ch1, ch2 unfinished

Comments

A2HV3RSE

What you can do with the bees and the brother thing is that Frances’ brother loved Bees , and she loved him, but he died, and what happened before his death was that Frances tried to control something in his life e.g. his gf, bank account, Netflix account, whatever it is it doesn’t sit right in him, and he leaves, and gets into an accident, and she never gets to solve this with him, and so when the bees are going extinct, Frances wants to save them because they are the last connection she has with him.

Paden Hoyd

So if Francis was a nomadic beekeeper pre-apocalypse, she was already fighting the war of climate change. As a nomad she’s probably one who has traveled extensively and has an appreciation and understanding of how truly beautiful the world is. I spent a lot of time with nomads this past summer and one of most common denominators between the ones I met was an affinity for life itself and a willfully optimistic perspective of the human condition. Another interesting fact, none of them were raised by nomads. They chose their lives because they knew who they were and what they wanted. I could draw from my personal life for this next part and say maybe Francis learned this beautiful and optimistic perspective from other nomads and/or beekeepers and finds purpose in the preservation of life. Seeing something on the verge of death and then allowing it to grow into a recovery is a beauty not known to all and an audience can easily connect with that. She probably has a vivid understanding of the worsening state of the war against climate change and the causes, maybe doubted or ignored by peers even, and then is ultimately proven right when shit goes awry. Is Francis the type of person to gloat about how wrongly people treated her or about how she’s was right along? I don’t think so. I think she, like a nomad, would hold onto her purpose and continue fighting to preserve life on earth (important to emphasize not just human life). We’ve already shown she’s strong enough to live through the literal apocalypse, so it makes sense that she could be up to the challenge. What (if any) pollen producing organisms survived a climate catastrophe? How does she still have access to bees? The task seems impossible. Think about bees for a second, you heard it from the movie, according to the laws of physics a bee should not be able to fly. It stands up to the “impossible” and perseveres anyway. Sounds to me like Francis could be using the bees as an extension of herself, like a swordsman, to fight for what she believes in. She feels not only a personal connection to the task at hand but also with how she’s doing it. I see a list of potential underlying themes. Preservation of life/beauty, perseverance during the “impossible”, commentary on climate change which is a real life issue. Just where my brain goes

Local187
>>118905440

Huh yeah that’s interesting. I’d hesitate to make her such a pure and actualized person, since I want to explore the human darkness and ego - that’s very much why I write

Drewzy

Can I just say: I really like the "arc exclusion" method you did for Francis. I've seen it explained by another YouTube channel as "external stakes vs. internal stakes": what's going on outside the character vs. inside. But your version is easier to understand visually.

Colin Herrera

Lucas, I think your initial instincts for Frances were correct. I think she is fundamentally lonely and looking for connection, to rebuild bridges. That is, at least to me, a sellable reason her desire to “save the world” manifests as beekeeping and re-pollination. Bees are, functionally, one of the many media for flora to interact with each other. I don’t think she’s a type 1. When I think of a Type 1 Environmentalist, I think of Xochitl from How to Blow Up a Pipeline; there’s an inherent element of confrontation that Type 1’s force on other characters to enact their vision of the world. I think Frances would really fit as a Type 9. She’s choosing to beekeep because colonies specifically /aren’t/ conscious agents who know their integral place in the larger ecosystem. Bees just gonna bee. They are both a means to an end and, if done right, the end itself. So maybe she used to have a Type 1 partner or used to idolize a Type 1 ecoterrorist, either of whom failed in their attempts to save the world from climate catastrophe. Her arc could be about learning to accept a need for confrontation and conflict in the world, or perhaps to see the value of such a mentality, in order to restore the eco-harmony she craves. As another commenter noted, there are logistical hurdles with saving the world through beekeeping (like what is being re-pollinated). She would need to talk to a botanist to get seeds to grow her garden to provide nutrition for her saplings, but entomologists and botanists are of course natural enemies, what with all their plants and stuff. Final thoughts: I also imagined Frances McDormand when I first saw you talk about this premise, but I imagined her from her role from Nomadland: older, with the face of someone who once was optimistic (and maybe still is) but has been repeatedly defeated by forces outside her control. This long form “book” video was extremely productive for me, it was good to hear you process off-script. I’ve had blank page syndrome since I left the writing world behind, and have been eager to jump back in. This, more than any of your previous videos, helped me “remember” how to access my toolkit. Nutrition for this script: I recommend reading “Antaeus in Manhattan” (1974) by biologist Lewis Thomas. It’s a really short essay about how ants (and nature) work, but his central thesis is something that would slot perfectly with a beekeeper-savior character. It’s scientific but accessible. There should be a free pdf or something online, some people have even posted his entire bibliography piecemeal to Tumblr (https://www.tumblr.com/biologywatcher/119091723880/lewis-thomas-antaeus-in-manhattan). Here’s a quote: “The most intensely social animals can only adapt to group behavior. Bees and ants have no option when isolated, except to die. There is really no such creature as a single individual; he has no more life of his own than a cast-off cell marooned from the surface of your skin. Ants are more like the parts of an animal than entities on their own. They are mobile cells, circulating through a dense connective tissue of other ants in a matrix of twigs. The circuits are so intimately woven that the anthill meets all the essential criteria of an organism.”

Lee Sanchez

dude i think "how did this kind of person happen?" is such a good, succinct phrase for describing how to conceptualize a character's backstory. very cool. i love that you're doing this. halfway through the video i started to get genuinely excited about the story itself!! but seeing this unscripted, unedited stuff is a privilege and even like, makes me feel better about myself as a writer. you really do just have to take some shots in the dark

Alex Melià

Happy new patron. Love how clear cut your discourse is.

ReAmRez

At this point you've probably moved on by now but I still wanted to throw in my 2 cents. I prefer to use thematic statements as the foundational guild to my "serious" stories, as appose to just theme(s), with the arcs of the characters not needing to be directly related to the thematic statement in order to convey it, and so frees up some of the developmental weight from the character's journey. That way I can come up with a good stand alone thematic statement and then puzzle piece the other story aspects together so that they are free to be whatever, as long as in the end they work together in service of the statement.

Crystal

Francis’s has a guilty conscience after an accident, where she was drinking and driving and put her daughter in a coma. She feels if she restores the bees she will be forgiven by her child.

Maq
>>120457678

This sounds fascinating! Could you give an example? Until now I always thought the Arc is the theme! I really can’t imagine a story where all of the aspects “are free to be whatever” and then “work together in service of the statement”, but it sounds very intriguing. As in, how can they be disconnected yet at the same time create a thematically cohesive narrative? Edit: just realized this comment is already a year old

ReAmRez
>>120457678

Yeah, it's so old I forgot about it myself, but I still hold to this idea and have developed a formula for statements since then, so I'll bust out a rando example for you and if your curious about the formula let me know and I'll explain that as well. Firstly by aspects I mean the setting, character and narrative and secondly they're restrained by needing to support thematic statement, so they aren't free to be whatever and then somehow work together. Statement: Political factions undermine familial unity when they don't prioritize family bonds. A story could be a protag not going through any arcs at all while getting into various situations (or one long evolving situation) which show other characters or elements of the setting suffering negative consequences. By the end of the story all the suffering is revealed to stem from the idea of politics over family while we also find out that the protag avoided similar situations in their life despite the political differences in their family because all the involved factions highly value family bonds. Protag goes through no arcs while the situation(s) need only to be rooted in politics over family in whatever creative way you can think of, leaving the story as a whole still supporting the statement. I made the example up as I was writing it so sorry if its not clear enough for ya.

Maq
>>120457678

Okay, that makes more sense! Do you think that can also work with a positive / negative character arc or only with flat ones ? And yeah, please tell me more about that formula :)

ReAmRez
>>120457678

The approach of using a thematic statement instead an assortment of themes as the foundational guide isn't meant to replace the idea of using the protagonist's personal journey. just that you aren't restricted to only using character arcs to do it. So to answer your question, no, not just flat arcs. As for my formula for crafting thematic statements themselves...

ReAmRez
>>120457678

I've been writing up a big document to organize my ideas for breaking down my approach to writing in the most basic of phrasing, so I'll just copy paste what I have so far for "theme". Theme : Ideas conveyed by a story’s author via the use of setting, character, narrative and storytelling/writing techniques Key Terms - Thematic Concept : A word or phrase expressing abstract concepts pertaining to the human condition. Thematic Statement : A complete and proper statement of how thematic concepts relate to each other. General Notes -1 _The human condition is the shared dynamics of naturally embodied peoples' psychological phenomena, physical behavior and ideological theories interact with themselves, others and their environment. -2 _ Thematic statements are strictly categorical propositions which avoid absolute terms/use qualifiers. -3 _ Thematic statements are observations of how 2+ thematic concepts relate to each other + a caveat. -4 _ Thematic statements are broad enough to be applicable at virtually any period in human history. -5 _ Concepts can relate to each other in their contrary or similar elements, sequential order, one being the cause or effect of another, being consequential or demonstrative of another, or being parts of another concept. -6 _ When utilizing thematic statements, story should gradually build up to and/or repeatedly show its truth. -7 _ Although thematic concepts and statements can be derived from stories, they aren’t required to craft one. The formula itself is as follows... Concept - 1A : Concept - 1B : Optional Concept - 1C : Optional Relation : Concept - 2A : Concept - 2B : Optional Concept - 2C : Optional Caveat : If you want an example just insert the statement I used earlier. Hope all this helps and questions are welcomed.