Group Four Presentation

by Priscilla, Stella, Tosin and Lorna

Our Chosen GenreDrama

• Conflict –Man vs Self Man vs society

Man vs Nature Man vs Technology Man vs Fate

• Emotion - A very important part of a drama is the emotion which is projected onto the audience. If the audience is affected then the drama has done what it was intended to do

• They are often based around social problems such as addiction, illness or everyday problems and scenarios.

• Dramas show a journey of a character/s who are easy to relate to and have realistic lives

Examples of our chosen genre

• Slum dog millionaire• Brokeback Mountain• Gladiator• The Last Samurai• Black Hawk Down

When Five Fell – Wongfu Productions

Our initial inspiration for our narrative

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5-ZhZea7AA

Trailer

PLEASE! By Paul Black

Drama which follows Freytag’s Dramatic Arc.

Exposition Young man depressed sitting in dark flat with lamp on. The flat is an unhappy setting and so we are told from the exposition that the film may not end well. 

Rising Action Main character putting a gun to his head

Climax Main character gets into an argument with his ex wife

Falling Action Main character gets novel deal and wife will take him back

Denouement Main character is shot accidentally by his young daughter

Freytag’s PyramidGustav Freytag was a Nineteenth Century German novelist who saw common patterns in the plots of stories and novels and developed a diagram to analyze them. Freytag believed that every drama can be divided into five major acts or parts. These were known to be: Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action and finally Dénouement. They are also known as a Dramatic Arc.

Exposition:

At the beginning of a film the exposition provides the background information needed to understand the story. Following the exposition is the focal conflict or problem which the story is based around; although this may not be clear until further into the film.

Rising Action:

The initial conflict becomes more complex as other smaller conflicts become noticeable. These conflicts make the road of the protagonist more difficult and deters them away form reaching their goal.

Climax:

The key turning point within the film where something could progress the story further or go terribly wrong. 

Falling Action:

The point in which the climax is reversed and the conflict starts to diminish slowly.

Denouement: Also known as the resolution of the film where the conflict is finally resolved. The word denouement was derived from the French word 'denoer' which meant "to untie". More often than not this is the ending where the protagonist is better off than they were when the story was first introduced.

Theme - DespairDespair also known as hopelessness, is the feeling of no hope, that something can't be resolved or is inadequate and far beyond the point of optimism. The pattern of thinking is one of being in trapped misery.

Despair can take someone to a whole new place and level of depression. They don't feel any encouragement to go out or do something. Most people in despair will be in a place where they feel comfortable; for example their bedroom. More often than not people wish to be alone and away from the rest of the world.

The thing that can trigger despair is a trauma in someone’s life or an overwhelming loss of something close to a person.

A dark room is one of the most common signifiers for despair. The room has low key lighting and gives the feel of isolation. A small ray of light breaking through the curtains could signify hope. We are hoping to use this visual image in our short film.

Moodboard for despair, loss and isolation

Narrative

Originally about a girl who has fallen into despair due to the loss of her best friend. The story will be told through flashbacks and voice overs as the young girl picks up objects which were important to her and connected her to her best friend.

Although the story is based on the same principal of despair and losing someone we decided the young girl will lose her sister instead of her best friend. Our questionnaire told us that most people have siblings which they are close to and they would be more affected by their death.

The point we wanted to pull out from our film was that through the difficult times, things always will get better, we learn how to move on

and pick ourselves up.

Target Audience

Our target audience will be:

- Teenagers and young people between the age of 15-25

- People who have lost someone they love and feel like they can relate to the film

- People who feel trapped or isolated in a situation and can't seem to find a way out.

Questionnaire We created a questionnaire and distributed it to young men and women around our school

to help us. We decided not to restrict our questionnaire to just women because we wanted to see what the men's choices would be and whether we should use two men who are bothers rather than two women who are sisters.

The results of the questionnaire have told us that a lot of people have got siblings that they are very close to. From this we have decided to stay with the idea of the story being based around a young girl who has lost her sister and is looking back in her sister's eyes through her journal.

Most of the people we distributed the questionnaire to thought that storyline and emotion were the features that attract them to dramas and are very important.

Storyboarding

LocationIdeally, we need a room that doesn’t emit much light and isn’t brightly coloured to create the genuine feeling of depression. The room would preferably need to be medium sized and not entirely neat. We don’t want it to be tidy because it adds to the feeling of bereavement; the young girl has just lost her sister she does not care much for a clean room.

Script

We began to start up the script. With our film, and as a drama, we wanted to evoke more mood through the actions, emotions and music within it.

There isn't a lot of talking from the main girl Hope, and within the script she is often labelled as Girl, since at this point in time, we were still deciding on a name for her.

AnimaticsWe drew out each shot on sticky notes and re-arranged them until we were happy with the result. We found out this process was quite long but detailed well the idea visually.

This meant that we saved some time and we weren't constantly rubbing out drawings because we had missed out a shot out.We then put all of the sticky notes onto black paper and took pictures of each one individually.

They were then all put onto Final Cut Express and edited together along with recorded voice overs and soundtrack, though the music doesn't finalize the actual soundtrack we would use, but gives an idea of what we are going for in our film, so to help us visualize our final product.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hR3sUQYwrE

This is the final product of our animatics. Creating the animatics has helped us see where there could be problems in our film and we can now try and prevent them.

Props

The necklace is a birthday present to the sister from the girl. This is our chosen necklace. We have chosen this necklace because we feel that the heart connotes the love between the two siblings.

The teddy bear connotes the sister’s immaturity; she is too old to have a teddy bear and yet she has one – she hasn’t quite grown up yet.

We have decided to use this teddy bear in our short film. We feel it has a neutral face and it would suit our film.

The journal is found in a drawer and it belongs to the sister. The journal will contain entries of the story of the two sisters. Each journal entry will have a voiceover explaining what’s happening in the short film.

Some of the props we decided not to use were a rose, sketchbook and music box.

The rose was going to represent the death of a loved one (the sister) but we felt it would have stereotypically be thought as a gift from a lover and so we aren’t using it in our short film.

The sketchbook would have been full of sketches and photographs of the two sisters together. These sketches would have been drawn by the young girl. After she has lost her sister she wouldn’t be able to stand looking at her sketchbook and would lose the inspiration to draw her sister until she accepted her death.

Casting

Tosin – Sister (Hope)

Plays the main sister. She is devastated by her sister's loss. She often gives her sister a reality check about the way she behaves and tells her to grow up. She gets frustrated with her sisters behaviour because she finds her annoying. She is the more outspoken sister.Initially, we named the young girl Jessica so that the audience can relate to the character more. If she were to be nameless the audience may feel disconnected. We have now decided to call her Hope due to the irony of the name contrasting to the theme of the short film (Despair).

Priscilla – Sister

Plays the sister that has died. She often feels her sister is unfair to her and doesn't understand her. She feels her sister always has a say in everything she does. She gets frustrated when her sister takes her things away. She expresses her feelings in a diary, rather than saying things outloud to her sister, but she would rather keep her feelings inside. She is the more shy sister.Deep down inside the two sisters have a strong sibling relationship and they stick by each other in the end.We have not given the sister a name because we do not want the audience to get too attached to her character because the viewers attention will be drawn away from the main character.