Film Preparation

1. Film Preparation
Eman, Lucy & Hamza

2. STORYLINE
Our short film production is based around a young teenage girl
that everyone thinks has a ‘perfect’ life. However the film will
showcase nothing is what it seems and this would explain through
flashback scenes that show the girl being abused by her boyfriend,
friends betraying her and her father who is pressurising her in her
studies. We are planning to do this in order to reflect the moral of
‘don’t judge’. The reason for this as me and my group strongly feel
as though teenage girls are not portrayed fairly. Since “sexy” and
“comical” seem to sell well to teenagers, most teen movies are
around two things: sex and partying. While there are teenagers
who do participate in these two activities, there are many who do
not. So in our film we want to portray the message of not judging
girls on the way they look, as something could have affected them
on the way they are.

3. GENRE
The genre that we have chosen is ‘Drama’. This is
because we have decided that we want our short to be
based on something which has a deep meaning to it.
Our film has a deep meaning to it because some
scenes in the short are violent, and some are not, so
therefore our film will straight hit into the drama
category as it has a strong meaning to it.

4. INSPIRATION – ‘ABOUT A GIRL’
We have researched in to many short films, but there were two which caught our eye, and
which our film could relate to the first one being ‘About a girl’.
About a girl - The short film About a girl was made in 2004. The film was directed by Brian
Percival and written by Julie Rutterford. The short is about a working class teenage girl who
has hopes and dreams of becoming famous and a secret takes her beyond her years. The
short film explores a number of issues that raise out attention to different ideologies.
Throughout the short the issue of celebrification is regularly exemplified through the
protagonist’s dream of fame. The film also contains the issue of teenage pregnancy, poverty,
alienation and parental neglect and awareness. One main issue of the short, is teenage
pregnancy which relates to one of the many binary ideologies that teenagers are too young
to have children. The issue can also evoke a more oppositional outer ideology in reference to
religious beliefs that people should be marries and be of an older age before they have
children or even engage with one another sexually.
The short film also presents the theme, appearance vs. Reality through the subjects the
protagonist is constantly talking about through the short film, which is her dream of fame
and her prior experiences with her family. As well as themes and issues the short also
displays a number of representational areas. These areas are age, regional identity and class
and status and are dominantly presented through the technical are of the mise en scene. So
overall this short has a deep and strong meaning to it, which we were inspired by and want
to crate something similar.

5. INSPIRATION – ‘IDENTITY’
We also researched in to the short film called ‘Identity’, as it also has a strong meaning to
which everyone can relate to.
Identity - The purpose of this short film is to entertain as well as portraying a message,
specifically to youth in schools, how to not let society determine yourself and who you are –
not to define your ‘Identity’. One of the films quote is ‘The truth is already inside you. Don’t
lose who you are’. This reinforces the message behind the film of not allowing anyone else to
make or transform your identity to it is not.
However even though the short is to entertain it’s main purpose is to make young teenagers
and the school youth understand not to let anyone define them and that they have to be
who they are, not who society wants them to be. The film is portrayed by one girl in a school.
Everyone around her, including herself, are wearing masks that essentially to cover their
identity. The main message in this short is to believe in yourself. This is highlighted at the end
of the short film where the girls mask cracks so she is free to remove it and be confident of
who she is. We really liked this short, as it has many messages to portray, and also it focuses
on one main person. This is good as it has a simple storyline and storylines which are simple
are most likely to succeed. Therefore this short received many awards as it had a simple
storyline with a great actress.

6. EQUIPMENT WE MAY BE USING
In our short film we will definitely be using the Jib. This
is because this way we will be able to achieve high
angles and also low angles of characters and other
scenes. We have also decided to use the jib for the car
scene we will be having as it will give us a good birds
eye view of the car.
We will also be using a tripod. This is because it will
be useful for scenes that will require still camera
movement in our film. One particular part it will be
very efficient for is the first scene where wee will
see shots of the main character walking in the
school corridor .
This is a photograph of a slider. We may
possibly used this camera equipment in scenes
which will require shots to add motion.