Script for pitch

I am doing a short film and music video based around child abuse and getting revenge. My
song will be to whos laughing now by Jessie j as I feel like this song even though it does have
quite a comdedic music video the lyrics are all about getting revenge and getting back at
people that have hurt her or put her down.

CLIENT
My client is uk film festival and there are Awards in the categories of, Best Short Film, Best
Feature Film, Best Feature Documentary, Best Short Documentary, Best Music Video, Best
Animation and Best Student Film. According to Mat Kirkby an Oscar winning director,
‘The UK Film Festival is the most focussed, passionate and quality driven film festival in the
UK"
I have chosen this client as I felt my production would be suitable and would be what they
could be looking for.

RATIONAL
From starting this course I have gained many skills including using programmes like premier
pro but my confidence in creating things has grown massively and this was something I did
struggle with before joining the course. Expanding my skills on premier pro has meant I am
able to create productions which have high standard and look professional. I have been able
to learn how to create foley sounds and also how they work which will also be something I
include in my production. I have learnt a lot about myself this includes managing my time
well to meet deadlines and actually get things done on my own accord.

PROJECT CONCEPT
Like previously mentioned I am creating a short film and a music video as I feel my skills in
editing a music video and short film are much better than if I was doing a documentary. With
a music video I have to make sure I cut to the beat to get my story across to the audience and
having hard hitting scenes that also cut to the beat well.

EVALUATION
Every week I planned on summing up what work I had done in weekly blogs which meant I
could look back on what I had done and know what to do next. I also went over my work
regularly with my teachers so I could see what work needs completely or needs being worked
on.
MY 3 IDEAS
My first idea was a short film and music video based around a mans best friend. I was going
to start it with him coming home to his girlfriend sleeping with his best friend and then him
kicking them out. Then in the music video he experience’s a lot of loneliness and decides to
look into rescuing a dog. This helps him get through his pain of the breakup until he goes to
meet a new lady and leaves the door open and when he comes home the dog has run away.

SECOND IDEA
This is my idea that I am using now. My production will start off with a short film of a young
girl who gets bullied and made to feel like she is worthless by her peers and also her
parents. I am planning on having scenes of her sat in a dull run down room with bruises
appearing on her face to express how she is feeling and her emotions, the short film will end
with her playing dead after being beaten up by some older girls. The music video will start
and it will be the girl when she is much older and I will show how she has gone off the rails
and hanging around with bad crowds but then her getting revenege on everyone who has
hurt her. I will include things like ruining cars, messing up her bullies homes by throwing loo
roll over it, her stealing a car from one of the older girls from the music video to show her
getting back at the people who hurt her when she was younger

IDEA 3
My third idea was a documentary based around the ‘perfect women’. I would have
interviewed young girls and asked them about the pressures they feel that they face by
thinking they have to look a certain way and I would ask them what they think the perfect
women is. I would also interview older women asking them what the perfect was when they
were younger and I would interview people who work in makeup shops and ask them who
their typical customers tend to be what they think about the pressures women face
nowadays to look a certain way.

After coming up with my 3 ideas I sent a survey out to as many people as I could to find out
what they thought was my best idea and why and how I could improve it. The results from
this were that idea 2 was the most original and to help improve it I got told to make sure I
have a realistic ending which helps to conclude the story. This survey also straight away
helped me to develop my idea as I knew that I needed to have a realistic ending to sum up
the story and also what the character almost learnt from her childhood.

After deciding my idea I made a brief and in this I talked about my idea and what I wanted
to produce, I discussed my client and why I had chosen uk film festival, I included a potential
target audience and I had a clear production schedule.

MY TOPIC
My topic is all about child mental/physical abuse and how it can have a lifetime effect on
people.
There are different types of abuse:

 Physical: being hurt by someone for no reason

 Mental or emotional: being treated badly, such as being ignored or criticised
 Verbal: saying or shouting or writing horrible things
 Neglect: not being looked after and kept healthy
 Child sexual abuse: touched where you shouldn’t be or forced to take part in sexual
activity

I looked into lonliness from young ages and how it can have a really bad effect on a young
persons growing up as they almost don’t know how to love which can be really sad.

Figures from Childline revealed that there were 4,063 counselling sessions about loneliness
in 2016 and 2017. From these, 73% of counselling sessions were with girls. Young people
told Childline they often spend a lot of time in their bedrooms or online when they felt low,
which made feelings worse.

I also researched revenge as this was my main topic in my music video and revenge is a form
of emotional release and that getting revenge will help us feel better however Revenge
does re-open and aggravates your emotional wounds. Saying this many people feel the
need to get revenge to help them move on from things that have happened to them.
Researchers believe that revenge is a form of justice and that the threat of revenge may
serve as a form of protection.

From my research I have developed my idea as I know what type of abuse I want to include
to make sure I can get the right revenge in my music video. I want to show more
emotional/physical abuse in my production. I will be able to show where all the anger has
come from and why she wants revenge so bad.

The next thing I looked into was my target audience and I sent out a survey explainging my
idea and asking who they thought a good target audience would be and it came back with
14-24s. I thought this was good as it was quite a wide age group however a lot of people can
relate to the bullying side especially young teenagers. I also asked if my production was
more suitable for men or women or both and my results came back as both which
expanding my target audience as Im not just aiming my production at women. Another
question I asked was what sort of actor I should use and it came back as one that stands out
and also someone who could repsresnt a lot of people, also a teenager.
I also did a focus group with people in my target audience about my idea and how I could
improve it and I got from this that I need to have a good ending to conclude my idea and
make sure I also have some good examples of revenge and what I want to show happens.
This helped me to DEVLOPE my idea as I had feedback from my target audience and they
advised me to have a good ending, this helped me to understand exactly what I wanted to
show in my production and as it came from my target audience I knew it was what they
wanted to see.

CODES AND CONVENTIONS

I looked at 2 music videos and 2 films. I looked at yambogini high by asap rocky as I like how
he has edited his music video with the huge ranges of colours and also the editing
techniques as this is something I am going to include in my production. I also looked at the
music video so what by pink as its all about revenge on an ex and it shows her anger all
throughout. I wanted to use this song for my production however I didn’t want to have an
lyrics about love/relationships as my topic has nothing to do with that. I looked at 13
reasons why as it is all about abuse from bullying and how she kills herself because of it.
finally, I also looked at a short film called removed which is very similar to scenes I want to
have in my short film of a young girl sat on her own with bruises on her face from the abuse
she faces day by day. From the codes and conventions it helped me to develop my idea even
more as I have looked at examples of professional work and how they have done it so we
can see the emotional side and so we almost feel sorry for the characters. I have learnt I
need to have dull lighting, and lower angles to get the right effect across of what I want to
show.

I practised some test shots of different shots I want to include in my production. For
example a pano close up on my actors face to show the emotional pain and also a low angle
in dull lighting to show how my character is feeling.

NARRATIVE STRUCTURE
When it came to narrative structure I had the choice between working along the lines of
Todorov's theorem or Exposition, Conflict, Climax and Denouement and my production fits
in with exposition conflict climax denouement.

CHARACTER THEORY

Vladimir Propp was a researcher interested in the relationship between characters and
narrative. He said that characters could be classified into certain roles that progress a story.
He believed that there are 7 main/typical character types in every story these are:
The hero, the villain, the dispatcher, the helper, the donor, the false hero and the princess. In
my story I feel as if I only really have the victim and the villains because she only helps
herself by getting revenge no one else helps move on from her childhood.

My CHARACTERS
For my short film I am using this 12-year-old Chloe. She is in a number of adverts and
feature films and I feel she will be great for production and also she will be easy to work with
as she has worked in the professional industry.
For my music video I have auditioned Emma and myriam. I feel as if emma will suit the role
better because she is very strong minded, also because she is available more than myriam to
actually film.

MY LOCATIONS
I will start my short film with scenes in school corridors and class rooms and also in a dull
room where the young girl will be seen to spend a lot of her time. In the music video I will
have scenes in marlow common woods, on driveways when she is getting revenge, also
inside houses and in ally ways. These suit my drama genre as these locations can be seen as
quite serious and sometimes even scary.

Storyboard
This is a part of my storyboard in the short film at the end where she is getting servery beaten
up and left for dead on her own in the middle of a road near school.

I feel that all of this research does relate to my target audience because I have the right actors
who my target audience can relate to and appropriate locations. I have kept my story quite
simple as I want to be able to show my narrative through the visuals but so it is easy to
understand. From this process I have learnt to manage my time well and also work quickly to
try and keep on top of the work even though I have struggled at times.