Control - Z/ Undo (Working Title)

A film about a guy dying

Synopsis & Major Plot Points• Guy lives a crappy life, dies• Catches a glimpse of heaven• Is resuscitated and realises he’d much rather be in heaven• Tries to kill himself, needs help from his friend to kill him• He ends up doing it to himself• This however gets him kicked out of heaven and he catches a glimpse of hell• Asks God to send him back so he can stop himself from dying• In the scuffle of doing so, kills both himself and his friend• Asks God once more to go back and fix the death he actually meant to fix so

that his friend doesn’t die• Film repeats as main character accidentally causes himself to die, repeating the

whole film again.

Barthes’ Codes and how my film follows them• Action - Constant dying and the montage of suicide attempts• Enigma - How the main characters are going to escape to their desired

location, how are they going to solve the problem of killing/not killing• Connotation - Louis grows to actually try and do something with his life

after he dies, Toby however breaks this rule by still wanting to die really hard

• Denotation - Heaven, whilst a common thought, is shown in a strange and different light, being a dingy shed in the middle of nowhere

• Cultural - Most people can relate to life wanting to change, or not wanting to live, however when made farcical can make a serious, relatable subject, comedic.

Conventions of my films genre and how I will reflect them

Target Audience and how my film suits their needs

GAP stands for general audience profile, GAPs are groups of people who consume any media text, like TV viewers and magazine readers. C2DE as a group are blue collar professions, like plumbers and electricians, students, the unemployed and old age pensioners, this social class is 33.7% of the GAP. C2DE, as whilst it may not make as much profit as if it were aimed at ABC1, the audience will lap it up because of the contents and advertising aimed purely at 15-24's, people who near the beginning of the spectrum are just earning their first pay and need something to spend it on.These are the kinds of people to enjoy comedies, particularly through streaming services and how available the film is on those streaming services. My short film will be short, sweet and funny, but have enough content for the film to be thought about and enjoyed again upon a second watch. The film when made will need to have enough continuous jokes to be enjoyed in a group of people, as whilst a slower paced comedic film may be enjoyed by someone on their lonesome, a film must be quite fast paced to keep the entire room of audience entertained throughout. Though the film tackles the theme of time travel, religion and death, the film takes a laid back look at the themes, taking the audience for a ride, instead of showing the audience a series of themes and what the film does with them and allowing the audience to think for themselves.

Character profiles:• Toby - Played by Toby West, 18, wants an easy life, wants to be lazy

as Louis, has a job, feels like he has the world on his shoulders. Remains in his work gear all film to show his dedication• Louis - Spectacularly lazy, 17, way of talking reflects that, once he

dies and God casually mentions that if he continues to be lazy he’ll go to hell, so he says he’ll change his ways, but because the film repeats, it never happens • God - Extremely passive aggressive, very low tolerance for treating

him as an equal - constantly corrects the main characters to not refer to him as a peer

Costumes

• Toby will be clean cut, and wear work attire throughout the film, despite how messed his clothes get, another convention seen in dark comedies like Hot Fuzz and Shaun of The Dead. However to relate to the audience, he will wear a hoodie over his work clothes.

• Louis will look really messy, wearing extremely casual clothes, such as ill-fitting jeans, hoodies, and a t-shirt. His hair will be styled messily as well.

Locations

For my film, I will require few locations for continuous scenes, but I intend to have a comedic montage during the short film, so that will require a sequence of extra locations with no significance to the plot.

• For the opening shots, a house with a direct exit to an open road• For shots in heaven, a dark dingy shed, big enough to film in but still

cramped enough for it to show up on camera• Several streets to record running shots as Toby attempts to make it

back to save himself

Props

I will use a Commodore 64 and a controller with invisible wire on the controller, to have it move around like a hand in a hilariously bad looking effect, again something not usually attributed to the target audience’s traditional ideas about God and his appearanceI will also use a gun of some kind, preferably an older looking prop gun, so that it will look confusing to operate and as such will add to the comedy

Where would my film be watched?

If my film were to be successfully pitched to a film publisher, I would have it published purely on streaming services, such as Amazon Prime and Netflix

This is based on the research I conducted via a poll I posted around on several social medias to gauge where and how people watch films.