Planning for Foundation Portfolio

Foundation Portfolio Planning 

Our basic plan went through 2 renditions:

Rendition 1:

BASIC PLAN

PTSD:

Characters:

Christian - Addison

- excels at everything

-has PTSD from early childhood experiences

- Has a voice in his head

Gets an A* in his test and looks up to see his teacher tormenting him, however, he is not really but is actually praising him for his good work. he turned to his right and left and where his peers are admiring him, he sees in place them ridiculing him, and making fun of him.

Leaves class and in hallway voices start going on in his head he fights with them and he turns to his left where he sees his reflection (evil) talking down to him

Enters locker room a peer is making fun of him, talks about something sensitive he lashes out and punches him. 

looks up and everyone is shocked 

Cut to him sitting on the edge of his bed, hears in background parents arguing about him

-talking about his PTSD what they did to deserve this etc, cut to parents actually talking about how precious he is and how to help him. 

Walks to his bathroom washes face looks up reflection returns and start bickering, sink waster turns in to blood and the reflection pulls out a gun Christian screams and punches mirror breaking it

Zoom into him hand covered in blood clenching into a fist.

Location:

School

Max's house

Rendition 2:

BASIC PLAN ver.2

PTSD:

Characters:

Christian (Theo) - Actor changed due to personal reasons, came back to act as an extra

- excels at everything

-has PTSD from early childhood experiences

- Has a voice in his head

Gets his report card with all A's and looks up to see his teacher tormenting him, however, he is not really but is actually praising him for his good work. he turned to his right and left and where his peers are admiring him, he sees in place them ridiculing him, and making fun of him.

Leaves class and in hallway voices start going on in his head he fights with them and he turns to his left where he sees his reflection (evil) talking down to him. reflection explains everything of his past etc (backstory)

Enters locker room a peer is making fun of him, talks about something sensitive he lashes out and punches him. 

looks up and everyone is shocked 

Cut to him running to the bathroom. fumbles pills and when he's about to take one notices in the mirror his reflection. torment him so much hears in the hallway teacher explaining to someone about his predicament reflection uses that so extreme, he punches mirror.

In the fragmented mirror, his reflection smiles  

Location:

School

Teacher and Peers= people staying back on Wednesday

Concept:
Title: PTSD (changed later to shattered)

• this name was chosen due to us not wanting to over complicate things and use a name that clearly states whats wrong with the character and thus gives the audience straight away a basic understanding of what wrong with Christian. This name is called a disorder increases the impact and meaning of not just the name but for the title itself.
• We changed the name of our title afterwards as we felt that although Christian was showcasing symptoms and attributes of person suffering from PTSD, he was not clearly stated to have been suffering from it.This plus the realisation that we did not truly understand the full spectrum of PTSD, we decided to play it safe and avoid calling the film PTSD and rather Shattered to reflect the theme of reflections, as ultimately us calling our film PTSD felt rude and wrong as we knew we would not be representing the severity of the illness enough justice.

Target Audience: Teens 16 -21

• Our target range for this film much similar to that of our other 2 attempts at a short film (PT1 &PT2), with that consisting of a more mature audience/demographic of ages 16 and up. This rational is due to the fact that our film consists of themes of darker and significantly more mature themes that is simply not to be expected in the films targeted towards a demographic of 15 and under. Our films backbone is that if the main character suffering form a mental illness and this in itself is a theme that wouldn't be understood or appreciated by a younger audience. For mature audiences however, they would understand the full impact of this theme and thus would be able to relate it to the actions of Christian. Themes like violence although with the absence of common items like guns, gets an added emphasis as a result of the knowledge that the violence was a result of Christians unstable perceptions and built up anger. We see his mental deterioration reach its peek when he begins to argue with his reflection that he perceives has become sentient for the purpose of tormenting and torturing him. The dark lighting we use in this short film gets contrasted to the natural light that we see a snippet of when we witness the establishing shot in the beginning sells Christians inner conflict and demons that would only be truly noticed by a mature audience. Ultimately, we leave the film with a cliffhanger, as Christian is seen running out of the bathroom whilst he reflection is left motionless, thus raising the question of what happens now?, enticing the audience to want to find out the conclusion of the story.

Character(s):

• Christian: Christian was our only main character in our short film. He needed to be complex and had to have something that could compensate for the lack of usual thriller conventions like guns, violence etc. We gave him a mental disorder that was at first PTSD but we decided to veer off from that path due to us not having actual real-life encounters our experiences with such a heavy issue as that. In the end, his illness is not covered but we feel like it didn't have to as the audience would only be focusing on his actions and less of what was causing them.
• Christian's Reflection: This is the embodiment of Christians mental instability. It mocks and insults him and causes Christian to believe he has been defeated and that his illness has won over him. Or at least that's what the audience is supposed to fell when they are left at a cliffhanger, Christian having ran off whilst his reflection remains deadly still wearing his cynical smile.

The thriller conventions I will include in my film are:

• Mirrors/reflections: to show inner conflict.
• Quick cuts: to imitate racing thoughts 
• A character that is mentally unstable.
• Darkness/shadows: represent an inner darkness
• Blood: to represent pain.
• Distorted voices 
• Loneliness/Isolation

Plot:

• Christian is in class and his teacher is giving the there report cards. His teacher is telling him how well he did and congratulating on all of his A's, but he hears other voices telling him what a failure he is. As he walks down the corridor he looks at himself in the window and his reflection begins to move on its own and talk to him, discouraging him. As he enters the locker room one of the other boys begins to congratulate him, but he imagines the boy tormenting him. He punches the boy and when he comes out of his hallucination he sees everyone staring him and realises what he had just done. He walks away confused and angry, with himself, into the bathroom. He walks up to the sink and begins to take his pills, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), wash his face. He looks at himself in the mirror and his reflection once again takes its own form and once again begins talking to him in a demoralising way. Christian gets angry at his reflection and throws his pills container at the mirror. The mirror cracks he stares at his reflection then he runs out of the room. His reflection is still there and we see a disjointed psychotic smile.

Themes:

School: highlights his fragmentation and his slow but sure progress of losing his mental stability, shows its progress. An interesting location to be used to showcase a characters mental battles and deterioration. This is usually shown at home in a more private setting but we felt that if we had decided to use a public setting where most of the surrounding extras were people of his age, this would increase the impact of his breakdown and thus cast a stronger emotional feel over the audience and the impact would also be increased dramatically as well.

Day: Shows the contrasts and fights the convention that bad things happen at night. His slow deterioration is happening despite the time. In daytimes, we do not usually expect to see dark themes like a reflection sprouting its own personality or a mental breakdown, however, we felt like choosing a day setting would highlight that such problems do not wait for a certain time but actually progress throughout the whole day, respective to day or night. This also highlights the power the reflection and the voices have over Christian as he is unable to fight it off even in the presence of light which may cause the audience to think how he fares of at night or even in sleep, or is he even able to go to sleep.

Prop List:

Fake Blood:

This is used to replace the water in a sink when Christian hallucinates, this adds an additional layer to the complexity of his disorder and creates a more sinister view of his deteriorating mind. We found out that since it was easy to do online, we chose to do this to save time and money. 

Prop Report Card:

 This was done in order to add an additional layer to the realism of our portrayal of the character being a student and is also an efficient way to highlight his intelligence. The report card is important as we as the audience get to see that he is a straight a student, and thus adds a layer of complexity to his character, almost being the perfect student but with one outstanding flaw.

Pill bottle label:

This adds once again to the realism of our film up to the point where I photo-shopped the name of the actual medication a person suffering from PTSD takes. The pill bottle also adds onto tension on the mirror scene when we see him attempt to take it to calm down but rejects it in anger, lashing the bottle out at his reflection.

Pill Bottle:

With fake medication in the form of candy, we are going to use this mainly for realism but also for storytelling practicality. It highlights his illness and that it needs medication. It heightens tension when he decides not to take the pills but instead smashing it into the mirror with his reflection, ultimately showcasing the reflection having had won. the pill bottle also implies the situation of his illness, being so dire that he requires to constantly take pills to suppress his illness and deteriorating mental state.

Mirror:

The use of a mirror, holds many possible themes and symbolism. Firstly, the reflection it creates becomes conscious and this is what really starts to torment Christian. The impact the reflection has is symbolised when he breaks the mirror at the end. The fragmentation of the mirror probably holds the most symbolism for the prop as it shows us as the audience how fragmented his mind and personality is, and that his reflection still being present in the mirror and as he smiles, its confirmed to the audience that he has taken over.

Costumes/Attire:

Originally, we decided that the actors were going to wear casual wear instead of a school uniform. However not only saving time but choosing instead to have the actors wear their school uniforms highlights the idea that this situation is a outlier in a rather ordinary setting. The uniform causes the audience to truly appreciate the severity of whats happening to Christian as the school uniform, similar to that of his peers shows how ordinary and normal he look at surface level but underneath that, lies his dark secret.

Script (Vernnon):

I did the script and was able to nail it my first try with a slight edit in order to cut it and save time.

Film Inspirations:

BLACK SWAN:

In Black Swan, we see a character that is slowly losing their mental state due to the pressure of her needing to be the best in order to gain two parts, the "White Swan" and the 'Black Swan". We see her slow mental deterioration when her reflection in the mirror starts to move on its own, even causing the light to go out in one of the scenes, sacring our main character. I used this as inspiration for the morro scene that we are going to use to emphasise our characters mental deterioration.

SPIDERMAN 1

In this film, the protagonist Osborn, suffers from the torment of his reflection taking up the alter ego of the Green Goblin. He is seen in this scene to be arguing with his reflection, and we intend to implement it in our bathroom scene where our main character Christian, fights with his reflection that is tormenting him slowly, insulting him.

THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER.

In this film, the main character Charlie suffers from PTSD. We see it come up at random times in this film but it is fully expressed near the end where his friends leave him. I feel like this representation of PTSD is the most realistic presentation of the disorder on film that I have seen. We tend to use this example and try to portray our character in the way Charlie acts.