This document provides a summary and analysis of the short film "Broken Together". It outlines the plot, which follows a foster child named Reece coming to terms with the fact that he may never see his biological parent. The main characters of Reece and his foster carer are introduced, along with the neglectful biological parent. Key themes of loss of innocence and locations used for filming are described. The document then analyzes the short film using concepts like Todorov's narrative character conventions and the concepts of equilibrium, disequilibrium, and balance in the plot. It also compares the short film to another called "ReMoved", noting similarities and differences in their approaches to attachment issues in foster children.

1. Broken Together
By Thomas Medhurst and Maisie Bloor

2. Plot synopsis:
O Our movie is about a child coming to terms with
the fact that he may never see his biological
parent and him going through the struggle to let
go of the past while learning how to love
another.
O We wanted to keep our plot rather basic so that
we didn’t bog down the movie in needless plot
elements but instead we will use our rather
simple premise as a catalyst to go further in-
depth with the characters and key themes of
our movie.

3. Characters:
O Reece (played by Leo Davis): he is the protagonist of our movie
as the plot revolves around him, he is a foster child preparing for
the day he’ll finally meet his father/mother but has his dreams
dashed as he realises they’re not coming and he has to deal with
the aftermath.
O Reece's Foster Carer (played by Max Robinson): he attempts to
go through this struggle with Reece and help him overcome the
reality of his situation while simultaneously trying to reach out to
him and fill the parental void in Reece's life.
O Neglectful Parent: this character is technically our antagonist due
to the fact that their actions or lack thereof has resulted in
struggles Reece has to endure we don’t know much about the
parent throughout the movie and has a life that is left purposefully
vague until the end where Reece's Foster Career must decide to
either give Reece’s parent a second chance with the potential for
Reece to be disappointed again or deny Reece this right while
preserving his innocence.

4. Theme:
O Looking at our short film it could fit into the
theme of the loss of innocence. This is
because the child character starts off with
a happy perspective and still believes
people, like his biological parent, are all
nice but in the end he realises that not
everyone is that nice a person. This
transitions him from being in his childhood
to becoming an adult.

5. Locations:
O Foster home (Child actors house)- we used this house because after
comparisons to real foster homes we found that it matched the
aesthetic of a real foster home.
O Direct work sessions (Glenaire primary school)- We used this one
because it worked best as it was in a formal looking area. It worked
best for the scene as the aesthetic of the room made it evoke the right
emotions as the characters were made to be sad so the room is very
barren. Emphasising how alone Reece feels.

6. Todorov’s narrative character
conventions:
O Hero: Reece, our main character, because we have
a desire to see his goals fulfilled (him coming to
terms with his parental neglect)
O Healer: Reece’s Foster Carer helps Reece on his
path to independence and aids his development
when the going gets tough.
O Villain: The parent is not ever personified
throughout the movie until the very end but instead
is a force that torments Reece more and more as
the progresses.

7. Equilibrium, disequilibrium and
balance:
O Equilibrium: The movie starts with our character being excited
over the chance to meet their biological parent of which they
have attempted before but has never happened.
O Disequilibrium: This time is no different with the parent not
showing up only now Reece and his Foster Carer have reached
their breaking point and as Reece deals with this the
relationship between him and his Foster Career begins to be
tested.
O Balance: Reece get into a potentially dangerous situation which
his Foster Carer gets him out of, professing his love in the
process resulting in their relationship being strong again.

8. Short film like oursPLOT:
After watching this short film
called ReMoved we compared this
to our short film. They both deal
with attachment issues that
children in the foster care system
may have to deal with. In both of
our short film and theirs it
eventually deals with the fact that
the final foster parent must learn
to understand their child needs to
be taking care of differently than
other children. However, there are
differences between our short film
and theirs. In theirs they show the
multitude of different families
some foster children may have to
live with. They even show some
reasons why the child has become
detached and believes that she
will never have a happy home
again. Ours goes slightly into the
neglectful side of the biological
parents part. However, this may
still show why our child believes
they may be let down by their
foster parent.