Nick becomes fearful of terrorism after reading news reports online. His fear and isolation cause him to make prejudiced assumptions about Muslims and Asian people. On a tube ride to London with his sister, Nick panics when he sees an Asian man on the train, assuming he is a terrorist. His fear builds to a climax until the man gets off without incident, showing Nick that he should not generalize or stereotype. The film aims to show the dangers of fear-based assumptions and how online information can negatively impact young, vulnerable people.
2. The first shot is pitch
black, with the non-
diegetic sound of an
Underground station
in the background.
This firstly adds a
sense of mystery as
the reader tries to
work out what is
happening.
It also makes the reader understand the name of the film
from the beginning, as we were aware of the various
interpretations our film name had
We felt this was better
than simply starting
with establishing shots
as it showed the
direction the film was
going in, as well as one
of the main themes and
locations in the film.
3. The next scenes
are various
establishing
shots of ‘Nick’
walking home.
This allows the audience to study
the protagonist. They can see he is
a young teen in school uniform
walking home from school.
They can also tell he lives in a
suburban, middle class
neighbourhood. This is very
relatable to our target audience.
Early implications can
be that the child is
quite isolated and
lonely, which
immediately gains
sympathy from the
audience.
4. From the establishing
shots, the screen goes
black and then into
this medium/long shot
Nick is now in his
room on his laptop.
The effect of the large shot with Nick at the bottom centre of it reiterates
the isolation and vulnerability of the character, which explains his fear
and paranoia later on in the film.
Also, the rather bland wall
highlights both his boredom
which leads him to research
terrorism and also it lack of
individuality; we didn’t want to
make him overly unique or
delve too much into his
personality to keep to the
social realism genre that
everyone can relate to
5. In the next shots, Nick
scrolls through Twitter
and sees countless
tweets about a
prevented bomb attack
in Piccadilly.
This is a unique way of highlighting the problem in our film in a way that encapsulates all the
themes in our film: terrorism, media portrayal and the power of phones/tablets/ laptop
The fact it’s a POV
(point of view) shot
creates relatability with
our target audience, as
it is something we all do
and a majority receive
the latest news through
social network, just as
Nick has.
6. We then move to a close
up of Nick, to really capture
the scared reaction he has
to the news reports of the
bombings
The close ups juxtapose with the
previous long shots of Nick on his
laptop, shows the importance of what
he has discovered to the plot
We wanted his reaction
to connote fear but also
curiousity and a desire
to discover more; this
would lead to him
doing further research
into what terrorism
“really” is, instead of
just what social media
is telling him.
The fact it shocked him so much
outlines his youth, innocence and
naievety
7. After being told to stop
and go to bed by who we
assume is his father, he
sits there for a while, still
looking shocked and
agitiated
This really hits home
with the audience, as
they are now
completely aware of
how much this has
affected him
This brings up questions to do with social media and its
power, especially to gullible and naieve kids
Our actor plays his role
here very well, he captures
the essence of our film here
perfectly. This is the
problem fully introduced to
the audience, and from
here the suspense builds to
the climax. (rising action in
Freytag’s narrative theory.)
8. This shot follows an early
morning establishing shot,
where Nick has woken up
and gone straight onto his
laptop, now downstairs
and not in his room.
The subsequent shot
shows him carrying on
researching terrorism,
shows his infatuation
and curiosity on the
subject
He researches “Donald trump muslim ban”,
which shows the danger of being scared by
terrorism, as it can turn kids like Nick into
racists who strive for political change to
ban muslims and other minorities from the
country.
It also shows yet again how much
social media has effected him,
from the minute he goes to bed to
the minute he wakes up he is
scared, researching.
9. As he continues
researching, his father
comes in and stands over
him, but after a few
seconds leaves the room
without saying anything.
This leads the audience to
belive that its due to a lack
of parental attention and
protection that he finds
himself on the internet
finding out about terrorism
himself
Either the father does not realise what he is researching
or the dangers and effects it can have on someone too
young and innocent to completely understand
Or he simply doesn’t
care. This is open to
interpretation for the
audience; but
regardless it furthers
the sympathy they
have with the
protagonist.
10. Another day passes, and
Nick comes downstairs
and sits down at the
table, to which his sister is
there waiting for him.
She tells him that they are
going to London to meet
their mother – this
immediately triggers Nicks fear of terrorism and the news
he’d read about an attempted bomb attack on public
transport.
This causes the audience to try
and foresee the rest of the short film –
by putting two and two together, they could reach the
conclusion that there could be another attack, and Nick
has good reason to be scared
This is what we hope the
audience predicts, as it gets
the audience in the mind of
the protagonist and makes
the climax of the short more
suspenseful as they beleive
they know what is going to
happen.
11. All of a sudden the shot changes to a
backseat shot – they are on the way to
London, specifically the tube station.
Yet again, the sister (and this time her boyfriend) are
with him but are not showing him any attention.
Nick sits in the back on his own with all sorts of
thoughts circulating in his head.
12. While in the backseat,
Nick looks out the
window, and one of
the things that catches
his eye is the Morden
Islamic Community
Centre
This reminds the audience of Nick’s new fear of muslims due to his
research on terrorism. Furthermore, it shows his generalisation of
muslims, prejudging them all as terrorosists.
The fact he
notices this shows
that these
thoughts are
always in his head.
This is crucial to
the plot of the
film.
13. Before getting on the tube, Nick and his
sister go into a shop so that she can get a
magazine for the journey.
Nick notices that the shopkeeper is of Asian origin and becomes very
shy, hides himself behind his sister and tries not to look him in the
eyes. He is scared of the man despite him being polite and not doing
anything to suggest he is dangerous or a terrorist – this does not stop
Nick from being afraid.
14. Now they walk into the tube
station: his sister lugs him
along, he falls behind,
looking disinterested and
distracted.
This ‘out of character’ attitude of his elucidates his
progressing fear of getting on the tube. The
prevented Piccadilly attack was on a bus, but
nevertheless he is terrified.
Regardless of this, his sister still does not notice
he is acting differently. This surely makes her
partly to blame for his prejudice of Asian people.
At this point, the
suspense has been rising
and will continue to grow
until the imminent climax.
15. On the tube, Nick tries
to distract himself by
going on games on his
phone, but cannot help
but notice the Asian
man across from him.
We used focus pull to initially have the man out of
focus, and then bringing him into focus with the
non-diegetic suspense-creating noises in the
background. This works really well to make the
audience automatically assume what Nick is.
Nick looks over at the man, and starts to
panic. From this point on, he assumes he
is a terrorist and examines everything he
does.
16. Nick sees him rummaging
through his bag and
perceives this as him
looking or setting up a
bomb.
The Asian man is also noticed
looking around the tube, to
which Nick sees this as him
being paranoid and looking
around for Police.
17. At this point, Nick is
practically certain that
this man is terrorist.
However, he doesn’t
know how to react.
He tries tugging on the arm
of his sister, who like always
ignores him as she is too
interested in her magazine. This close up shows the true fear in his face. This coupled with
the suspense being built by non-diegetic sounds builds up an
excellent climax where the audience are expecting an attack
any second…
Just before the climax, a
high pitched beeping
sound is heard, this time
diegetically. This sounds
like a bomb to the
audience….
But…
18. The beeping stops. The
climax has happened.
The beeping was
actually the opening
of the tube doors: the
perfect epitomy that
the audience got into
the characters
mindset and believed
that he was a terrorist
too. The Asian man gets off the tube without causing any harm to anyone. His
assumption that he was a terrorist is false; showing he should not have got
so paranoid and scared by his research online.
A fake climax, but
with a very strong
message. You should
not generalise a
group of people as
evil just because a
very miniscule
proportion of them
are.
19. Nick lets out a huge sigh of relief as he
realises he was wrong about the man
and about stereotyping Asian people in
general.
He is now clear that the Asian man meant no
harm to him or anyone. He greets a Caucasian
man who is waiting for him at the stop.
20. THE END
The moral of our story is
now apparent and the
audience have seen the
problem with generalising a
group of people through the
eyes of a child. If they too
believed the man was a
terrorist, then they can point
fingers at themselves too.
