Our film will be following the story of two best friends as there relationship falls apart and one of them slowly becomes more vacant and empty. We will follow their story through flashbacks, beginning with fond memories and then slowly turning into confusing scenes and arguments as one of the girl's mental health deteriorates. These flashbacks will appear during a continuous shot of the two character sat on a bench facing away from the camera. The camera will start from directly behind the girls and will then begin to move anti-clockwise around them in a semi circle. As the camera gets closer to the faces of the characters the flashback will become more unpleasant and sad. Finally the camera will move slowly around the front of the girls to reveal the main protagonist sat alone. A close up will reveal her vacant look and hollow, dead face as looks directly into the camera, breaking the fourth wall, and the screen transitions to black. The themes of friendship, death, mental trauma and loneliness will all be present in this opening.
There will be two characters in our film. Character 1 is the main protagonist, who will experience mental trauma and Character 2 is her friend. The first character begins the film as a ordinary, happy teenage girl (around 16 years of age). We see through her memories that her friend holds strong significance in her life and that they are very close. It will be Character 1's memories that the audience witnesses and therefore her emotional responses in the scenes will be important and accordingly focused on. Character 2 will be of the same age and will also appear perfectly normal and pleasant. However in later flashbacks she will jitter in and out of existence, confusing the audience and leading them to question her authenticity.
In later scenes Character 1's deterioration will be shown through her skin becoming paler and dark circles forming under her eyes. Her clothing will also change as she stops wearing bright colours and begins to favour black and grey clothes instead.
We decided to make both characters female as they are typically seen in film as the innocent ones who must be protected. Therefore there will be more impact on the deterioration of our protagonist as the audience will sympathise with her fragility as a female. Her age will also identify with our target audience and therefore provoke even more sympathy from the viewer.
For the extended scene of the girls sat on a bench, we will be filming in a large garden in front of an old looking house. This will represent her looking back at past memories as we will also be filming some of the memories inside in a home environment. For the flashbacks that are set outside we will be filming in a remote, rural area. The scenes will take place on quiet streets and around small village estates. This will make the memories more personal as it will only be the two characters in the scenes, with no interruption from anyone else. This will also reinforce the possibility that these events could just be taking place in the imagination of Character 1 as no one else is present. We will use natural lighting and will be filming during the day so that the scenes appear realistic.
Other flashbacks will be filmed inside as we will be recreating happy events such as the girls watching a film together. For these scenes the location will be a living room. We will use props of cushions and blankets to make the scenes appear more cosy which will reinstate the fact that the girls were both comfortable and happy in these times.
The darker, melancholy flashbacks will be set inside as well so that we can alter lighting more effectively. For these the tone and lighting will be dull and moody in order to fit the mental state of the character. We will also be filming some of these scenes in the bathroom where Character 1 will be staring at herself in the mirror, looking disorientated. The lighting for this scene will be stark and harsh, similar to that of a hospital, as she is examining her reflection.
We will be using a large variety of shots in our production. For the bench scene we will use medium tacking shot to move around the girls in semi-circular shape. For the memories we will use close up shots to show the emotions of the characters, especially in the more melancholy scenes as this is where Character 1's mental deterioration begins. A close up shot will also be used as the last shot, showing Character 1 looking vacant and dead and then looking directly into the camera, breaking the fourth wall. We will also use over the shoulder shots for some scenes to show the perspective of Character 1 so that the audience has an insight into what she is seeing and therefore what may be happening in her mind. We will be using still shots but also fast pans and quick movements during the argument scene between the two characters in order to bring a disorientating feeling to the scene.
During the post-production process we will edit the tone of scenes depending on the mood they are designed to give off. For example we will put dull, grey tones on top of the more depressing memories and warmer, brighter tones on top of the happier ones. We will also add in white and black flashes as transitions between clips to represent gaps in the character's memory. They will also be used to transition in between the bench scene and memories.
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