Story idea's and feedback

Tagline- A trauma effecting people through the ages

Pitch- Older sister (haven’t fought of name yet) is an average young adult with more than just a job to juggle. How will she come with the dramatic change in responsibility? An epic drama between two sisters and the pain they suffer due to the 9/11 attacks.

Sister and sister are travelling around together through the streets of England. They are both asylum seekers. They just came to England just before the 9/11 bombings. Both sisters are from the Middle East. Although they don’t believe in the Islamic religion everyone the older sister works for fired her or abused her due to the fact that they assumed she was part of the culture or religion of the people who were bombing the planes. They suspected her due to the fact she was always carrying large bags that they assumed were bombs ect. In reality those large bags contain cloths due to the fact that the sisters were homeless and had no money. They spent their nights on the streets or in homeless shelters. At the end of the story the eldest sister breaks down and gives up, but the younger sister reassures the older sister that “everything will be ok soon and that they will be able to sleep in warm beds again”.

The younger sister

The younger sister shows signs of maturity and hope. She is always optimistic and pushing her older sister to do her best and reminding her what there fighting for; freedom. She is 8 years old and has black short hair. She’s quite skinny and timid, but is extremely caring. Her costume should be a worn out jacket and worn out jeans and a pair of black shoes that are too big for her.

The older sister

She is mature because she has to be mature for her sister, but in reality she is quite weak. Her mother got them both into England in order to protect them from the civil war that was going on at home. After there farther died there mother decided to send them away because she didn’t want to see anyone else die. She is 20 years old and skinny as well and has black medium hair that looks scruffy. Her costume consists of a pair of warn out jeans and trainers and a jumper that is too big. Sometimes she’s able to cope with the hardships of  life; but because the role of  mother was forced upon her unexpectedly she finds it difficult to cope, so there are times in which she has her moments of weakness.

Camera

We see a lot of long-shots of the sisters travelling a lot together, while carrying a huge bag with all there possessions in it.  There may also be a lot of two shots of the two together. I think their should also be a lot of low angle and high angle shots to show the power struggle between them and society.

Society

They are living in a society that has just suffered one of the most traumatic events in history. Due to this everyone is on edge and acting out of their usual characteristics due to fear. It was an event that truly shocked everyone and woke up the world.

The other way around

The other way around

Oscar is in a wheelchair because his legs are paralysed. Oscar is picked on by the school bully. One day Oscar is being picked on by Billy and both of them get electrocuted/static passes through them. When they wake up the next day Oscar can walk again, but Billy can’t walk anymore. The film ends with Oscar walking towards his mum and both of them are happy, while Billy’s mum is crying, while he says “I can’t move my legs”. Finally the dad comes in with a brand new wheelchair.

Lighting-

low-key lighting at the start of film. High-key at the end of the film for Oscar, but low-key at the end of the film for Billy.

Billy- quite large, black hair and a snub nose

He loves his family, but is really annoyed with the fact that his little sister gets all the attention because she suffers  from dyslexia. He can’t go out that much because he always gets stuck looking after his sister. Instead of compassion for his sister he has resentment for her. When everyone starts giving Oscar attention at school he fears that he will lose his life again; like how he lost control over his life at home. He starts picking on Oscar to stop this from happening and to let out his frustrations.

Oscar- Skinny, fragile and pale looking

His father left when he was young due to him not wanting to take responsibility of  a disabled baby. His mum is a social worker and she loves Oscar very much. Their living in a house the council gave them due to Oscar being disabled. He knows his mum works very hard to look after him. She works late at night to pay for the extra money  needed due to Oscar’s disability. He thinks that it’s his own fault that his dad left and his dad is always tired. To pay her back for what she does for him she doesn’t tell her about the bullying, so that he doesn’t worry her.

Props

Wheelchair for Oscar and Billy

Both boys are 8 years old and they are both English families.

Camera shots

There would be a lot of low-angle shots looking up at Billy to show how he’s more powerful than Oscar.

Editing

Black and white colours for Oscar and colourful colour’s for Billy. At the end the final scene will be a split screen and the black and white world will become Billy’s world and the colourfull world will become Oscars.

Short films

The first time it hits

The filmmaker used animation in order to show the love relationship between the girl and the boy and the fact that everything else was black and white made the animations more distinct. They also kept on cutting from the girl to the boy to emphasise their relationship. There were a lot of fast cuts that represented the fast pace life of a teenager and how quickly the boy fell out of love. Two characters helped keep the story simple and the narrative was simple as well, but it was kept interesting by it having an unexpected turn (the girl got hit by the skateboard). The black and white also showed the audience that the teenagers weren’t your everyday teen due to the fact that one of them is a skater boy and the other one appears to be a Goth. The fast cuts also made the audience concentrate more because if they didn’t concentrate they would miss everything.

Job Street

When the one of the male characters were waking up the camera became out of focus and became in focus when he was rubbing his eyes. The audience were seeing the short film from that characters perspective. The camera kept on cutting from one character waking up to another, which told the audience that the narrative was going to be about three main characters. The filmmaker was very careful in making sure that each character got just as much film time as the other. It seemed like a normal day of work for the three men until we saw them lining up on a street. The Asian man needs money because he’s sharing a room with too many other people, so it’s overcrowded. The white man needed money to provide for his family. The black man needed money for his family as well. All the other people had a roof over their heads apart from the black man.

Hard Labour

It wasn’t a simple story, so it was too complicated for it to be a short film that lasts five minutes. I thought the narrative however was very strong. The diegetic sound was constantly playing a sad song, which eased the audience into the world of the film.

Ice-cream dream

Quite interesting establishing shots were used. I thought the short film was surreal and the music made it more surreal, but that’s because the film is targeted at young children not teenagers. The main characters rite of passage is getting over her fear of making friends.

Short films

Stripes

I thought the narrative was quite simple in the film stripes, but it was presented in a clever way.  Instead of filming the story at an earlier stage (e.g. when they were in primary school) they chose to do it when both the bully and victim were a lot older, which is the less typical option out of the two. They made a typical story different by making the characters older, which changed their power and status (because when your older your more capable of looking after yourself). The location was quite simple. Although the location was a room we couldn’t see all of the room which kept the location a mystery for a while. The actors were quite good and strong, which made the narrative all the more realistic. How they achieved camera shots were very interesting. Instead of both characters being in one place they made one of the characters move around  in order to get more enchanting shots that looked more realistic. Due to the fact that one of the characters was tied down to a chair his movement was restricted, so they made the villain move up and down instead of allowing him to just sit in front of the victim. They played a lot of attention to props to add realism to the story e.g. there was a lot of blood and the victim looked sweaty and tired, which are signs of being scared or being under pressure/unusual conditions. I like the fact that there were only two characters because it helped make the idea even simpler. Whenever something dropped or someone walked around ect you could hear it. This helped build tension seeming as these on-screen/ off-screen sounds were randomly heard during moments of silence.  Sometimes a shot would be blurred and then focused. I think this shows us the perspective of the victim, who had been kidnapped in his own home. This gave the audience a new way to look at the short film. The audience automatically knew what was going due to the props of a chair and rope (he has been tied up) and the fact that the victim used the dialogue “this is my house” in an agonizing way. They were able to tell the story without going into too much detail into the back-story.

Short films

Offside

The fact that their listening to the radio instead of watching the football match suggests the characters are possibly in a third well country/away from home. The commentary from the radio was extremely clever because it was commenting on the football match and the tension and actions between the four soldiers. The commentary explained the chemistry between the soldiers very well and it even gave us a summary at the end of what happened by saying “no one can win in a situation like this”. The camera kept on cutting from the two soldiers with the radio to the other 2 soldiers (extreme close-up) to build up the tension the commentary was making already. I think it’s particularly smart that they used a football commentator’s voice because a football commentator builds up tension because their voice changes based on the mood of a match. You can feel what the commentators feeling and the atmosphere of the current situation when you listen to them. I was hanging off the edge of my seat to find out what happens next. Due to the commentators voice my actions resembled that of a football match. I felt disappointment and shock when the soldiers were killed. The commentary strengthened the connection between the audience and the film. The location looked like a desert, which suited the world of the film due to the fact that the characters were from the army. All the soldiers had guns, which also resembled the world of the film. The audience were able to make assumptions about the characters based on their costumes. The football match brought all the characters together and the moment it paused they were enemies again. Their friendship was symbolised by the extreme close-up’s and the close-ups of the characters faces. Their facial expressions were of them smiling and relaxing their guns. We could see the relationship of the characters developed due to those movements and those movements alone. The camera also kept on circling the soldiers in a circular motion, which is also the same camera movement used during fight scenes, which gave away the next scene.

Brainstorming of ideas and feedback

This is a list of all themes we thought of focusing on in the area of our subject matter

rites of passage.