PitchBy Sarah Ghile

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Similar Films

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.

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.’

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.

TEACHERAs 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.

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.

MISE-EN-SCENE

Cinematography Camera shots: An extreme long shot, POV shot, close up, extreme close upLighting Low key, out door natural lighting (grey skies to set mood of gloom

and danger)

PropsCigarettes , lighter, vodka bottle CostumeSixth form uniformLocation School, alley way, house, bus stop