But not many comprehend that choosing the title, 'How Do You Say?', no matter how 'peculiar' it seems to be, was actually a very difficult task for this project. To begin with, a title is the foundation and arguaby the stronghold of any film. To me, it is just as important as the content of the film because a good title almost always indicates good filming. And to John Patterson, it "could accurately reflect what those titles make [him] feel or imagine". Additionally, a movie title can go down in history for its creativity or become part of a language. Take for example the film Groundhog Day (1993). This film revolutionized what was just a normal American holiday about a groundhog looking at his shadow and in turn changed the word to have a totally distinct meaning, and that is feeling as though one's day is repeating in a never ending cycle. In an Atlantic article, it is evident that they used the word to have the latter definition when mentioning the economy: "The past five years have been a Groundhog Day recovery. Every day, we wake up hoping that this will be the day that the economy finally picks up.". Therefore we know that this movie changed the meaning of Groundhog Day for the American people (Could be a good thing or bad thing, you decide).
So, the reasons behind how and why I chose my film title was based on interviews (Well, basically going up to foreigners in anthe airport) consisting of the question, "" There were various responses such as "How are you" or the basic "Hello", but I wanted something rich and original, something that is constantly said but never grasped. That is when it struck me that there was one answer that seemed prevalent, even when not part of the question, as a sort of filler or mode of hesitation, and that was the phrase "how do you say?" I know when I'm speaking a foreign language such as Spanish, I always use "como se dice" as a mode of hesitation in order to give me more time to conjure up the correct pronunciation or sentence that helps to convey what I'm trying to say. So, tah-dah "How Do You Say" was born. My character is a youth, as I have previously mentioned in various postings, attempting to learn a completely different language from her usual vernacular. Of course, she has gotten some influence of English in her home country of Lebanon due to, you now, globalization and stuff. But, more importantly, because it's a language that Rafka is not completely used to, she will hesitate with the wording and in somehow utter the words that many people attempting a new language will utter, "How do you say".
I have compiled my research in a table that uses three common phrase columns such as "How Are You", "How Do You Say (Or somehting along the lines of that)", and "Hello":
O'Brien, M. (2014, March 7). We Can't Escape Our 'Groundhog Day' Recovery. Retrieved March 23, 2016, from http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/03/we-cant-escape-our-groundhog-day-recovery/284301/
Patterson, J. (2008, April 04). John Patterson on the importance of a great film title. Retrieved March 23, 2016, from http://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/apr/05/3
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