Fighting With Tomorrow Monologue

The fighting with tomorrow monologue came from a year of pain, in 2023.

The story has nothing to do with my parents, or anyone I know of. The father is a representation of myself if I became my worst version of a performer and the son represents the angst and anger I felt as a teenager struggling to figure himself out.

In 2023, I lost everything that I was holding on to. I lost majority of my savings after nearly scraping a car because I was late to a shoot, money I was keeping aside for three years while being a full time student to do a personal trainer course to assist myself as a radio presenter as I wanted to differentiate myself and have my own journey. I wanted to work as a trainer during the day and as a presenter on screen on Expresso and present on the Afternoon Drive show like Carl Wastie, developing a gym over the years as my main business the way other presenters did.

Those two months when I was unsure if I would be let back in to the campus station after telling them about my degree situation, really made me question why I was always in a rush with presenting and never slowed down. I was avoiding myself. I did not think I had what it took make creative work a career as my goals with media were not big or long term. It felt like those three years of recording in rooms during covid, followed by the one year of sleeping on my friends residence floor when doing the 7 to 10pm Hip Hop Specialist Show, really did feel like it was for nothing. Thank you to Natalie Brandeth for letting have my final run with UCT Radio in 2023.

I failed as a writer trying to write journalistic articles, never having one published because they were not good while I was a full time student and everywhere I looked I saw people I knew of on television while I was looking for jobs among 500 people in one room, all desperate for R5000. My student loan was going to kick in and increase every month by the end of 2023, and I knew that I was starting from scratch. I had nothing anymore.

I remember sitting on the baseball field of my friends game, watching him play wondering why I was there as I knew I should be competing in a sport myself or a martial art. I sat there with a notebook my mom was no longer using and just decided to start writing after remembering the dialogue structure we were given for our English exams in matric, following that same structure and it was in my final exams in 2016 that screenwriting was started but only in 2023 was I starting to see what I could do with writing after years of writing poems, rap songs I never did anything with and reflective pieces of writing seeing what perspectives I could learn from my own life. I wrote a short script, on three pages, called Linger, getting out the relationship failures that were on me. If it was not for being on Lemon Lalla's Man of the House film, I would have had no idea how badly I wanted to act and how rhythm and pacing worked for fictional stories.

Part 2 of this post is coming next.

Part 2 of Fighting With Tomorrow Monologue:

At that event, I was told I could not leave unlike others as the rule was people could only leave after 9pm. I waited upstairs by the bathrooms seeing some things no person should see that many see regularly, feeling this gut feeling that something was going to happen. I drove the three of us home immediately. The next day, I was told three people were shot via a drive by, about thirty minutes to a hour after we left. The same day I started writing fictional stories again, was the same day I might not have been able to see it through had I stayed.

Back to the day of the shot: After a whole day of failing to bring out the emotion for that monologue, I just thought about 2023. Heck in those two weeks, I barely worked out, drove my ma back and forth after she was hijacked in front of her house, changing the script fully, finishing my producer treatment in the car while waiting for my ma and aunt in the police station, barely sleeping for those two weeks. On the day of shooting, I fasted, until I knew I gave all I could give and in this monologue, legs shaking, head feeling weezy and stomache burning, I knew I did after I was told the cinematographer felt himself shake.

Below is the link to Lemon Lalla's film Man of the House which gave me my first leading role and first taste of working with the script and understanding character work. If I was not on her film, I would never have been able to learn more about dialogue. A special thank you goes to Jahem De Vos for recommending me. You gave me a start and for that, I look forward to growing with you.

Below is also information on how to reach and support Free Film School. If you ever want to support and help an initiative grow, theirs is one to grow as they literally gave me and many others, the skills and space to free and empower ourselves. One day I will attend there for a workshop, but this time as a facilitator, mentor, funder and owner of a production house. assisting the same way that I was, before leaving to go overseas to grow further. Free Film School, you gave me a life and allowed me to reimagine my purpose.

Thank you.

Man of the house Instagram Link: @__lemonnn__

Link to the monologue available on Youtube: https://lnkd.in/edM6bbti

Website: https://lnkd.in/ehwEx5qM

Email: freefilmschool.za@gmail.com

Instagram: @freefilmschool

Facebook: Free Film School

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