Characters Biography

Mike:

• He is in his early 20s and is going through a rough time.
• His problems consist of family, work and girlfriend issues.
• Whenever he is deppressed he starts drinking a lot.
• He has recently started smoking cigarettes.  
• Has started his own business, but hasn't paid back the loan he owns.

Becky:

• She is in her late 20's, also going through a similar rough period, like Mike.
• Her problems consist of work and boyfriend related issues.
• She has a decent job, as a secretary, but doesn't like being told what to do.

Preliminary Story Idea

Main Story Idea:

• Our main character is a guy going through depression due to work and personal problems.
• In the first scene, he will be walking over to the pub in frustration.
• He arrives to the pub and starts having a few pints.
• After getting a bit tipsy, he moves on to shots.
• The pub starts closing down, he goes outside for a cigarette and comes across a lady.
• They start a conversation about ongoing issues the both of them are going through.
• She offers the guy to go back to her house for a few more drinks.
• They walk back to her house.
• They start drinking.
• She offers a shot of tequila but puts some sort of drug in the shot glass.
• As soon as he takes the shot, he blanks out.
• He wakes up in his own bed, with a gun and blood on his hands and bed.
• He finds a note in his pocket from the lady, saying thank you for helping me out.
• He gets a sudden flash back of what happened. 

Why I Like It:

• I like how the story progresses throughout.
• This story can be considered a mix between a drama/thriller and these are my favorite types of genres.
• I like the way that both characters have the theme of depression in common.
• The way the guy doesn't remember anything, leaves the viewers in suspense.
• The final scene where there is the flashback is a good way of presenting to the viewers what actually happened after the main character blanked out.

Story Ideas

Film Ideas

First Idea

• Our main character, Mike, is going through a time of depression due to work and personal problems.
• In the first scene, Mike will be walking to the pub in desperation.
• Mike arrives at the pub and starts having a few pints.
• After getting a bit tipsy, Mike moves onto shots.
• Mike goes outside for a cigarette and comes across an attractive lady, Becky.
• They start talking to eachother and discuss ongoing issues that they are both going through.
• Becky suggests to go back to her house for a few more drinks.
• They walk back to her house.
• They start drinking and talking.
• Becky offers a shot of tequila and puts some sort of drug in the shot glass, while Mike isn't looking.
• As soon as he takes the shot, he blanks out.
• Mike wakes up to see the dead body of Becky and next to him a gun with blood on it.
• Mike finds a note in his pocket from Becky, saying 'thank you for helping me out'.
• Mike gets a sudden flash back of what happened: Him at gunpoint to Becky.
• Mike starts panicking and becoming hysterical from the realisation of the crime he has just committed. 

Pros:

• Andrew, my partner for this task, has a friend that owns a bar, and he has agreed that we will be able to use it for our short film.
• The film doesn't require many roles, so the casting won't be a problem: Becky, Mike, and the Barman.
• The actor we have in mind to play Mike is available.
• The actress we have in mind to play Becky is available.
• We will be able to use my house for one of the locations.
• The majority of the locations we will be shooting at are internal, therefore we will not need to rely on natural light or external weather conditions.
• The costumes and the props will be easy to find.

Cons:

• It might be hard to make the blood and the gun look realistic.
• The people we have cast for the roles have had no previous acting experiences, so we think that a lot of time will be used up from scene retakes.
• As this is being filmed in a pub with other people inside, the sound quality of the audio could interfere and disrupt the dialogue. If so, we will try and edit the noise out in post production or re-record the audio separately at a later date.
• Our editing skills are quite basic, so especially for the flashback scene it will require more time and work to make it look good. 

Second Idea

• A guy wakes up in a field, on a bench.
• He looks into his pockets.
• Has a different phone and a set of car keys.
• He gets a call from a private number.
• The caller demands him to get in a car not far from him and tells him what he needs to do in order to save his son, who they have as a hostage.
• He follows their orders in the hope of saving his son.
• He is forced to break into a house and take what is in the safe.
• As soon as he enters the room where the safe is located, the alarms start going off. He panics.
• He is trapped not knowing what to do, with the risk of his son being killed.
• He gets a call from the private number again and the caller offers his son back if he meets them under a bridge at midnight.
• When he escapes from the house, he starts getting paranoid from the fact that the police could arrest him.
• He arrives under the bridge to find out that it was a prank set up by his friends.
• His son is safe and played along with the parank.

Pros:

• Finding a field for the filming won't be hard.
• We have phones that can be used as props.
• We can use my younger brother to play the role of the son.
• We can use my house as a location and it also has an alarm which we can set off.
• We have a group of friends that can play the roles of the friends.

Cons:

• Neither of us have a car and renting one could be expensive.
• Recreating the break into the house may prove difficult. We want to film what looks like damage, not cause actual damage.
• Neither of us have a safe in our homes.

Third Idea:

• A guy goes to the pub.
• He has a few pints.
• A man next to this guy, accidentally swaps phones.
• He gets a call from an unknown number.
• Turns out, its a drug king, who is demanding a delivery of a package.
• The guy refuses to do it as he was the wrong guy.
• The drug king insists he has men watching him and has to do the delivery, if he wants to live.
• He proceeds to the task he had been asked to do.
• The guy goes to the location where he had to pick up the package.
• As soon as he arrives, police cars arrive on the spot.
• He ends up being fooled as an experiment by the police to see to what extent someone will do something to save their life.

Pro's:

• Pub won't be hard to use as Andrew has a friend that has said we can use his.
• We won't need many locations.
• It doesn't require many people.
• Mobiles are easy to obtain.

Con's:

• Finding police outfits that look realistic could be hard to find.
• Finding a police car and having the permission to use it would be incredibly difficult. 

Brief Identification

 This year i will be doing a short film in its entirety, lasting approximately five minutes, which may be live action or animated or a combination of both, together with two of the following three options:

- A poster for the film
- A film magazine review page featuring th film

How I Think A2 Will Be

In AS, my group and I created an opening sequence to a Thriller film. I think that A2 will be different to AS because the short film we need to make this year has to be longer and dosen't have a set genre. From what we learnt last year about making a short film, we can apply our knowledge on filming, editing etc... to be able to make a good short film. Also, this year for the film we will need to create a poster and a magazine review. This will be a
difficult but fun activity to do.