2. Plot
17 year old Natalie, is struggling: stumbling and staggering through her life in a
midst of questionable choices and consequent outcomes. With the whole world
against her, she walks with a concrete wall that no one can tear down. The film
begins with her washing the blood of her self-inflicted wounds away, and cuts
to a flashback of her day. It begins with a heated argument with her parents,
she storms out of the house in rage and heads for college. Things have not got
off to the best start and unfortunately for Natalie, this is the only the start of
the turmoil that is to follow. After leaving her house she heads towards her bus
stop in aim of getting to school, unfortunately she misses the bus and has to run
after it, in doing so she drops her bag and the contents of it lays all over the
ground. In defeat she sits at the bus stop, and lights a joint. After arriving at
school late she enters class and is scolded by her teacher for her lateness;
feeling belittled Natalie sabotage herself and walks away in a puff, she leaves
the school grounds, and walks down into an alley. There pulls out a vodka
bottle from and bag and drinks it quickly. In an emotion state, she throws the
bottle down and smashes it to pieces before leaving the alley again. We re-join
Natalie in her bathroom, hysterical and delirious, she sits crying with a blade to
her wrist and the audience are left to imagine the unthinkable.
3. Genre Drama
A drama is a genre that depends mostly on in-depth
development of realistic characters dealing with emotional
themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, child abuse, drug
addiction, moral dilemmas etc., put the characters in conflict
with themselves, others, or society.
In most cases the film concentrates on normal character(s)
that is dealing with a conflict or dilemma. Dramas often give
actors a chance to stretch into a role that other genres
wouldn’t allow them to do. This is because drama films focus
on building up characters that the audience can engage with.
Drama is one of the broadest movie genres and includes
subgenres such as romantic drama, melodrama, crime-drama,
historical drama.
4. Conventions of Drama Films
Portrays a characters journey and developments
Exhibits real life characters, situations, settings and
stories.
Intense social interaction
Dramatic sounds and exaggerated performance.
5. Target Audience
Our film is targeted at those aged 15-30 both male and
female though predominantly female.
Our film is specifically targeted to females; though not
exclusively. This is not to say that males are not to enjoy
our short film, but that the emotional context and intense
focus of our protagonist thoughts and feelings are likely to
be more understood and appreciated by women, especially
in that the thoughts and feelings are over a teenage girl.
Our film is aimed at socio-economic groups C2, D and E.
This includes those of skilled manual occupation, semi-
skilled and unskilled manual occupations, unemployed and
lowest grade occupations. In applying this discriminatory
tool for media consumption to our short film, we deemed it
sensible to aim for the socio-economic group’s listed above
as we feel those above this group may not be able to
identify with the day-to-day of our protagonist life, in the
way that the lower groups potentially would.
6. Our film is targeted to those of the ages 15-30. Our film
centres on a 17 year old girl, living [for the most part] a
generic lifestyle, thus appealing to a mass amount of
teenagers as they can easily relate and identify to our
protagonist simply on the means that the bases of their
lives [attending college, leisure activities] will be
cordial. The age range we aim to appeal to, reaches
beyond just teenagers as although older audiences may
not be able to directly relate as our protagonists yet to
enter adulthood, many should be able to empathises
with the emotions and difficulties she faces, as the
intense context is one that an adult will be able to
comprehend and perhaps resonate with.
7. USP
The unique selling point of our film lies with our protagonist Natalie.
Many should be able to empathise with the emotions and difficulties
she faces, as the intense context is one that an adult will be able to
comprehend and perhaps resonate with. Those at the older end of
the spectrum may instead of relating to the protagonist, detach
themselves as a 3rd party subjective able to analyse, unpick and
condemn our character for her flaws as they have surpassed there
adolescence and can view the situation not from the protagonists
view but from a mature perspective – our protagonist and short film
could be enjoyed in the way that the audience see what the
protagonist does not.
9. Cast
Our short story features one main on
screen character throughout the
production, being our protagonist
known simply as ‘Natalie’. Tiana
Kaselle will be the actress to bring
our character to life.
Tiana’s experience in school
productions as well as professional
YouTube and independent movie
productions were influential factors
in desiring her be our actress, but it
was also how easy it was to relate
our character to Tiana – in aspects of
there age, demeanour and presence,
there were similarities to be found
between them.
10. Cast
The only other one screen character to appear in our
short film will be a ‘teacher’. This role was very small
and thus did not have many requirements in terms of
qualifying for the position. This role educes a few lines,
said by a women of middle age with the stereotypical
costume you would expect of a teacher. We felt it
would be wise to ask to ask a drama teacher to play the
role of the ‘teacher’ and feature [briefly] in our short
film as they would expectedly know how to conduct
themselves on camera and hopefully be convincing as a
‘angry teacher.’
11. Costume and Makeup
NATALIE:
The context of our film happens within one day, and the costume of our
character remains the same throughout the production. In order to
connate that Natalie is a troubled, rebellious teenage girl we gave her
image small alternations such as a nose ring, dark makeup to signify
mystery and an unapproachable appearance.
As Natalie is attended sixth form, her costume consists of a white shirt,
black trousers, flat back shoes and a large black handbag.
TEACHER
As the teacher in our production is not a committed actress, her
costume will be what she wears on the day. As our actress is a teacher
in reality, her appearance and dress code should align with what would
be expected.
12. Location Budget
Our opening sequence will consist
of several locations
1. S standard suburban home
2. A school
3. An alley
4. A bus stop
5. Hill land area
◦ Our short film is a low budget
production. The main expense into
the production of our film would
be the purchase of certain props,
and travel. As well as the payment
of our actress.
◦ Our locations will not require hire.
13. MISE-EN-SCENE
Cinematography
Camera shots:
An extreme long shot, POV shot, close up, extreme close up
Lighting
Low key, out door natural lighting (grey skies to set mood of gloom
and danger)
Props
Cigarettes , lighter, vodka bottle
Costume
Sixth form uniform
Location
School, alley way, house, bus stop
