Planning: Developed Ideas

After we conducted our three ideas pitch, me and Georgie decided to take on board the feedback we have received and develop our three ideas further:


Idea One:
This first idea will be a short film which follows a girl through her teenage years and the difficulties she experiences as she grows up. This will be made up of a series of short scenes and shots edited together to make a montage, to hold together the narrative of the short film we will include a voiceover throughout the short film that will correlate with the scenes being shown. This will act as the protagonist looking back on her past with a reflective tone from an older age.

Our protagonist will be female and will be between the ages 14-19 throughout the film. Some examples that we will include in the short film are: break ups, school stress, birthdays, parties etc. We will use makeup, costumes, hair and props to present our actress as the different ages throughout the piece. To make up for our lack of actors we will be using visual images to imply certain relationships and events, for example we will use a shot of a milkshake with two straws to hint towards the protagonist being in a relationship.

This film will follow typical convention within the Coming of Age genre, for example we will use typical locations such as cities and towns to film in. We will have scenes set at home and in schools, also following typical conventions. There will be different relationships presented such as love interests, friendships, relationship with parents and a sense of self-discovery.


Idea Two:
This idea would be a music video instead of a short film. This music video will follow a female protagonist and will be using the song 'Surprise Yourself' by Jack Garratt. We developed this idea as a short film initially but whilst creating our pitch we decided this idea would be better formatted to a music video.

The video will begin with a teenage or young adult female walking home, she will look depressed and defeated. There will be different shots and scenes of her walking in different locations. As the tempo of the song increases the female protagonist will begin dancing. The dancing in her life will act as her release in life. This music video will be effective through the use of different editing techniques such as a graphic match. This will show her dancing in different backgrounds, as the scenes cut to the next the protagonist will be dancing the same movement, therefore making it seem like she hasn't moved but the background behind her has. Our chosen song 'Surprise Yourself' has many dips and rises which will allow us create an interesting routine for the video. The actress we would be using for this music video also has a wide variety of dance experience and we would work with her to create interesting choreography for the video.

This music video would also be conventional for the coming of age genre as the protagonist is a teenage girl who is experiencing problems at home which is shown through her being depressed and upset in the start of the video. The fact that she found her happiness in dance also reflects the determined characteristic which many protagonists of coming of age films have as they risk everything to overcome their issue, for example in the short film I analysed '9 Meter' the protagonist risks his life repeatedly to save his mother of her illness. It will also show common locations of the genre such as home, towns and cities.


Idea Three:
This third idea will be a short film. It will follow two teenage characters as they develop a friendship as they communicate by writing on a desk in school. These two characters will eventually meet and the audience will witness their developing friendship as they help each other over come issues and problems they face.

The protagonists of this film will be a 15 year old boy and a 15 year old girl. For the initial part of the short we will see the friendship develop through a dual narrative of each character writing on the desk which will then cut to the other character replying later on the same desk. Editing techniques would be a prominent feature in this first section as there would be many cuts and transitions used. We could position the camera in one spot but constantly cut between the two characters as they would be sat in the same seat at the same desk. We would start the film with the boy, bored in his lesson, scratching 'hello' into the desk. This would then cut to the next day when he is sat there again as he looks down at his desk he realises someone has replied. We see him writing a reply which would then cut to the female answering the message. The film would cut between the two characters and their messages to each other. We also considered including stop motion in this short film as the messages appear on the desk. When they finally meet in person, it will be revealed one of the characters id experiencing issues such as an abusive family member. They will work together to overcome these issues.

This short film will follow the typical conventions of the coming of age genre as it will follow themes of friendship. Both characters will also be teenagers, another convention of the genre.