PLANNING: TREATMENT

TREATMENT

Title - Silent Voices 

Logline = This short film is a bout a teenage girl who experiences supernatural events whilst suffering from the losses of her family members. Every day the girl, called Alice wakes up and finds a family member missing form her family photo in which she keeps on her wall. 

Synopsis

The first scene shows the family getting together to take their annual family photo and this presented through a wide shot which introduces the happy, well rounded family. This then fades out and cuts to Alice putting the photo up on her wall, this is an over the shoulder shot. She is portrayed as happy and innocent. After this she carries out her daily life, heaving whispers behind her creating an ominous atmosphere, and due to this she becomes paranoid and anxious. An extreme close up shows her taking a deep breath in and out, this is then followed by a hard cut and a black screen. 

Suddenly Alice wakes up and immediately looks at her alarm clock to the right of her. Showing a new day, the family photo catches her eye and is confused about what is wrong with the photo. This is then followed by a reaction shot of her realising her mum is missing from the photograph. Startled, she runs down with a panicked look on her face. She sees her dad cooking and confronts him about where mum is in the photograph. He snaps back and shouts "You know not to bring her up, we don't talk about her in this household". Alice then runs up the stairs, past mums room and suddenly stops, she slowly walks back and hears something whispering, slowing she opens the door of her mums room and sees a body shape on the sheet cover, presenting that someone was then recently. She also notices that there is a freshly cup of tea steaming. Next shot is Alice running out of the room, whilst slamming the door shut and leaning back on the door panting heavily. 

A hard cut is then used, followed by a close up shot of her again when she wakes up and looks at the alarm clock showing the next day. She also immediately looks at the photo on the wall, seeing that her sister is missing. She's clearly confused and frantically looks at all her other photos where her sisters meant to be, missing from all of them. She looking at it and her dad comes behind her shoulder and says "its a nice photo isn't it". She panics and shouts "wheres my sister, wheres Emily!". He then replies "You've never had a sister, who's Emily?", Alice screams "Shut up dad! I'm not loosing my mind". She then slams her door, turns her light of, jumping into bed crying, frustrated and confused. She then isolates herself by hiding under her covers. Suddenly she can hear shuffling under her bed. We then use a birds eye shot presenting the next scene showing a creepy silhouette of her sister coming from underneath her bed and then gets dragged back in as soon as Alice jolts up. Alice then looks under the bed, and sees nothings there. Finished by a hard cut. Middle of the night, the camera pans downstairs and you see a mug smashing on the floor with the TV on and him screaming, showing the dad disappearing.

The alarm goes off and then pans to her face showing a distressed look on her face. She peaks out from under her covers to take one last look at her photo. Showing how its just her left in the photograph. She goes to pick up the photo and sits on her bed looking at it, crying. Talking to herself repeating saying "no,no,no,no". She screams one last time, followed by a floating image of just the background with no one in it. This is then faded out, with the title "Silent Voices" with the sound of someone saying "Shhhhh" in the background. Fading to black.

Characters
Alice - Protagonist
Emily - Sister
Claire - Mum
Gary - Dad 

PLANNING: TOP LINE AND BIG QUESTION

TOP LINE AND BIG QUESTION

Frank Ash is a creative consultant at the BBC Academy. He has taught storytelling and creativity techniques to teams across the BBC and other media companies. In the video I have learnt how you might think about appealing to your audience in practical terms. I can do this by telling the audience what the story is, what kind of story it is and who the story is for. He has told us that we need to tell the audience as quickly as possible what the story is and what it is about. The top line needs to emotionally involve the audiences. Frank ash tells us that a good storyteller should be able to gain the audiences attention with just one line, this is what Frank Ash calls the Top Line. This helps us as we have tried to sum up our narrative in one sentence. Then Frank Ash added in order to hook the audience the writer needs to develop the big question. Frank Ash also added that we need to let the audience know what the big picture is.

Top Line - A short film delving into the world around a teenagers life as her family members start to disappears from it. One person missing every day and she's the only one who remembers them.

Big Question - Why am I now alone? 

RESEARCH: SHORT FILM ANALYSIS - RUSSIAN ROULETTE

RUSSIAN ROULETTE ANALYSIS

Russian roulette from RosannaBrown5

RESEARCH: SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 2019

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RESERACH: SHORT FILM ANALYSIS - HIGH MAINTENANCE

HIGH MAINTENANCE

High maintenance from RosannaBrown5

PLANNING: ADVANCED PRODUCTION INITIAL DEVELOPMENT

We used Canva to write down all our ideas onto a an A3 format which is clear and simple to use. We will keep looking back to the mind map whilst creating our own piece, this will make sure we are always keeping on the correct tracks, for example reminding ourselves what a thriller should contain. 

We then created a more in depth mind map which is much more specific. We have summarised the plot, named all the locations and probs that will be involved, the characteristics of our characters and also the type of genre we are exploring. We found mind mapping all our ideas out very helpful as it prevents us from forgetting any ideas we had. 

When creating this idea we came up with the title of our Short Film, Happy Life. We chose to name our film Happy Life as it is very ironic as the main character is severely depressed and going through a lot emotionally and with his best friend. 

When it comes to props, we are going to use a MacBook so we can film the two main characters on FaceTime with one another, the computer is significant in our Short Film as it shows what the friendship is like between the two characters an dhow they communicate to one another. 

OUR UPDATED VERSION

We have completely changed our final Short Film idea. We have now chosen to do a supernatural based film. Our current plot, follows a young teenage girl who wakes up seeing her family portrait in the background everyday. She then notices people are disappearing one by one from the image.

However, we have included a supernatural element into this, we have used inspiration from many films such as 'Back To The Future'.

We are planning to include many enigmas codes. Engimas Codes to entice the audience in and help move the the narrative on. For examples; a black silhouette of a man who is watching her sleep, this man could be her father. Another element, is when a the teenage girl is reading a book then a man comes up close behind her and whispers "Hello, Alice" making her jump up not looking behind and locking her door, shots of her panting and scared for her life, this will create suspense and ambiguity.   

RESEARCH: MARKETING - A STAR IS BORN

A STAR IS BORN

THE POSTERS 

All the posters that were released, were very intimate, showing the close bond between the two main characters. The first film poster that was released shows Jackson and Ally sharing a special moment, this was released at the same time as the initial trailer. These posters give a glimpse of the intimacy that is a large part of the film.  

ONLINE AND SOCIAL

The film's official website provides lots of information, including an about page which gives a brief explanation of the plot and also key information about the making of the movie and the background. "In addition to playing Ally, Gaga—who earned an Oscar nod for the song “Til It Happens to You” from the film “The Hunting Ground”—performs original songs in the film with Cooper, which they wrote with a handful of artists, including Lukas Nelson, Jason Isbell and Mark Ronson.  The music is original and all vocals for the movie were recorded live during filming." The website also contains some videos like the official trailers and teaser trailers.

MEDIA AND PUBLICITY 

In mid-July it was announced the movie would screen at the Venice Film Festival, a last-minute decision reportedly made after an exhibitor screening generated enthusiastic reactions that opened up speculation of potential awards campaigns. The movie was named as one of those screening at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Furthermore, the movie was featured on the cover of Entertainment Weekly’s Fall Movie Preview, including interviews with Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper about working together, the story of the film, how they shot at various music festivals (like Coachella and Glastonbury), how the soundtrack was made, how Cooper was inspired by his experience working with Clint Eastwood and more.

THE TRAILERS 

The trailer opens with a performance by the main character, who is played by Bradley Cooper. Jackson is tired and running out of time, though he’s still performing and getting a rush from the crowd when doing so. The main character is portrayed as a drunken mess as soon as the trailer starts, this is shown by the rapid clips of him staggering onto stage and falling into the car with a whisky bottle in hand. The lighting is dimmed which sets the scene up perfectly. There are scenes of performances as well as other chaos and turmoil, all accompanied by some of the music featured in the film.