Initial Ideas
Initial Ideas
In order to help me choose which topic/theme to choose for my FMP I made three mind maps all expanding on my knowledge of that topic. This shows me what a clearly stronger topic would be for me to pick.
Mind Map around theme of Travel
Mind Map around the theme of Mental Health
Mind Map around the theme of Memory
Looking at the three mindmaps, it becomes clear that for me to pick memory as my theme would not be a smart choice as it the topic in which I could annotate the least to do with the word.
I will now look into the other two topics to help me work out which is a better choice.
Travel
When I think of travel in a film, there is one film which comes to mind - this is Little Miss Sunshine. This is a film which is based around a dysfunctional family trying to get there daughter to a beauty pageant. As the tagline for the film says 'A family determined to get their young daughter into the finals of a beauty pageant take a cross-country trip in their VW bus'. most of the film takes place in a VW bus. This is really interesting as it is a small environment with many characters in. This allowed for a very character and dialogue led story. It also allowed for elements of comedy which were achieved well by the physically close environment they are in.
IMDb. 2020. Little Miss Sunshine (2006) - Imdb. [online] Available at: <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0449059/?ref_=vp_back> [Accessed 17 March 2020].
I believe the idea of a family or people being filmed and viewed traveling inside of a vehicle is something that I could really work with in order to create a film which heavily purveys one of many different emotions. In little miss sunshine the misfortune of mistakes and the strangeness of the family combines to present the dark humour throughout the travels. I could use a series of related characters to bounce of each other.
The other route I could take with travel is think more along the lines of having a solo character travelling. This could include more of a open plot to the film and allow the viewers to try and work out what is going on. This would be due to much less dialogue as there would be less character interaction in this scenario.
If you look at the clip below from Mr Bean's holiday this follows a similar concept. Mr Bean is travelling on his own to a destination outside of his home country. On his way he meets people who add aspects of comedy and emotion to the story but but the overall occasional character interaction it allows for the emotions to be pushed. You would typically thing lonely but as you can see Mr Bean is not shown to be lonely and instead he is represented as a bit stupid, therefore helping to give the whole film the genre of comedy.
YouTube. 2020. Mr. Bean's Holiday (2/10) Movie CLIP - Funny Faces (2007) HD. [online] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-3iw8l0lB8> [Accessed 17 March 2020].
This clearly shows the representation of the character plays such an essential part in the overall outlook, feel and genre of the film. I should take this is into consideration if I proceed to involve just one protagonist in my film.
One of the most epic films which heavily involves travel is The Lord of the Rings. Lord of the rings involves travelling in such an immense scheme to complete this grand task. It is different from the previous films in the fact that the protagonist frodo and the rest of his companions are setting out on a mission that is going to involve deadly obstacles that they can only imagine. They do not really know what they are doing in order to complete this grand task of destroying the ring. As seen in the video referenced below, this film contains lots of inhumane and imaginary aspects which allow for the aspect of travelling on foot throughout these far realms of this thought up world to see more grand and daunting.
IMDb. 2020. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy On Blu-Ray. [online] Available at: <https://www.imdb.com/video/vi2073101337?playlistId=tt0120737&ref_=tt_ov_vi> [Accessed 17 March 2020].
In this trailer you see the many wonderful aspects of this world and universe that contribute once more to how the film feels and what makes it fit into the fantasy genre. If I wanted to create the idea of a my characters travelling on a grand quest style journey I would want to consider having out of this world elements in order to maximise the wow factor. This however would likely lead to higher costs as according to the IMDB page the Lord of the Rings trilogy costed upwards of 268 Million dollars.
Google.com. 2020. Definition Of Travel - Google Search. [online] Available at: <https://www.google.com/search?q=definition+of+travel&oq=definition+of+travel&aqs=chrome.0.0l8.6056j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8> [Accessed 17 March 2020].
Upon googling the definition of travel it presented me with these definitions. It shows me that to travel you are making a journey, or is an object or thing moving in a constant or predictable way. This shows me that if I were to pick travel I could explore more deeply into travel that the immediate thought of travel in a vehicle to a destination. However, I am not ruling this out because I believe if I do it well it can be really effective.
I could explore the idea of something other than a human making a journey and travelling, for example when I think of things which go on a long journey and travel a lot in there lifetime I think of parcels and Cardboard boxes. I believe that with a bit of work I could make an object which humans are not normally attached to have some sort of emotional story line attached to it.
The idea of attaching a sense of life to parcel has been done by Amazon in their christmas/holiday adverts.
2020. [online] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2K0flh9uMc> [Accessed 17 March 2020].
When watching this advert you begin to feel happy for the boxes, just because the have had a mouth put on them. The mouth gives them this humane aspect which can immediately allows you to emote with them.
The video referenced below is a short film which involves the use of a travelling object in order to purvey a message, in this case the message is the fact that being small is not always a bad thing.
YouTube. 2020. SMALL (Short Film). [online] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDp-VC-0tSk> [Accessed 17 March 2020].
The objects that plays the protagonist in the film is a small little marble. You see the marble travel around the environment and begin to become attached to it.
It was confusing to me why humans seem to get attached to objects and things that are not human. So I decided to look up why that this was the case. I found this website which stated that 'people become attached to objects on order to satisfy certain emotional needs'. This is basically saying that people become attached to objects in order to feel certain ways. Some people rely on certain objects to feel certain feelings like confidence etc.
2knowmyself.com. 2020. Emotional Attachment To Things | 2Knowmyself. [online] Available at: <https://www.2knowmyself.com/emotional_attachment_to_things> [Accessed 17 March 2020].
--
When Humans travel they generally have a destination or a reason to travel. In my film both of these will play a huge part in allowing me to develop what the rest of the story and what the feel of the film will be like. For example if I decide the destination is a funeral or something that is not joyous you can expect a quite dampening feel and tone to the story.
After doing some research and reading through a fantastic blog post on virtuoso (referenced below) it explains many different reasons that people love to travel. The reasons which it talks about were reasons I had not initially thought about when I thought about travel but it has opened up my mind to think about more relating reasons. One of the reasons that were talked about on the blog that really interests me is the idea of 'Getting in touch with yourself'. This is the idea that getting away from home and what you are used to will give the you the opportunity to reflect on life and to let your mind wander. It states 'traveling is one of the best ways to learn more about yourself'. This is true, being alone and travelling allows a human to think and discover things about themselves. Every moment of travel brings sets of issues and opportunities. This idea of getting in touch with your life also links very closely to one of the other reasons about appreciating your life. When you are caught up in your routine that you live at home it becomes very easy to forget what you have and to appreciate that. Getting out and about and seeing and experiencing other people way of life can allow you to really appreciate what you have and your own way of life.
Goldberg, B., 2020. 10 Powerful Reasons Why People Love To Travel. [online] The Virtuoso Life. Available at: <https://blog.virtuoso.com/tips-and-trends/10-powerful-reasons-why-people-love-to-travel/> [Accessed 18 March 2020].
The reasons above have allowed ideas to develop in my head relating to the idea of my main character trying to get away from home. This could be after some sort of argument or catastrophe and the protagonist is taking some time to reflect on their life.
From doing all this work on travel I have began to develop some very strong ideas on the kind of storyline which I could create using the theme travel. I want to create a short film which carries lots of emotion and could possibly act as a tear jerker. I want to take the idea of having a good portion of the show take place in a vehicle like how you see in little miss sunshine. I believe my characters could be going to a funeral or relating sad event. I would add twists to this in order to ensure the story is gripping and keeps the audience watching.
Mental Health
Google.com. 2020. Mental Health - Google Search. [online] Available at: <https://www.google.com/search?q=mental+health&oq=ment&aqs=chrome.4.69i59j0j69i57j0l2j69i60l2j69i61.3975j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8> [Accessed 19 March 2020].
When you look up Mental Health online this is the definition you get. It is explaining that Mental Health is essentially a term to describe the well-being or an absence of mental illness. It is the state that when someone is functioning at a satisfactory level of emotion. A bad mental health would be when someone is functioning at a bad level of emotion. Mental health problems come in may different forms such as Bipolar, Anger, Anxiety and panic attacks as well as a lot more. In this day and age Mental Health is recognised and there lots of resources and help out there in order to help someone who gets diagnosed with a Mental Health Condition.
Mind.org.uk. 2020. Types Of Mental Health Problems. [online] Available at: <https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/> [Accessed 19 March 2020].0
From a quick browse online, it becomes clear that mental health is a very serious issue and can can affect people in tremendous ways. It can have knock on effects to friends and family related to the person suffering.
In twenty nineteen we saw a film release which had a theme of mental health, this was Todd Phillip's Joker. The film covers a type of mental health problem which is more known for filmmakers and other shying away from which is psychotic illness. In the film we see the protagonist stop taking his medication leading to an increase in violence. The way which this is presented throughout the film is very key to the overall plot of the film. I would take inspiration from this film as it is tackling a topic which is very open to hate and negativity from the outside world - which it did get from some people arguing that how it was displayed in the movie was not right.
Throughout the Joker you spend most of the movie seeing Arthur (Protagonist) on his own as a loner which helps to allow the audience to understand why his mental state is bad from his lack of social inclusion and interaction. If I decide to relate my story to mental health I think a key part of the film would be to show why my characters mental state is bad and possibly num any social interaction as that is a big part about keeping anyone sane.
the Guardian. 2020. Why Joker's Depiction Of Mental Illness Is Dangerously Misinformed. [online] Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/oct/21/joker-mental-illness-joaquin-phoenix-dangerous-misinformed> [Accessed 19 March 2020].
In order to understand some more about Mental Health I watched the short film referenced below. What I gained from this is that if the people that surround that person are not giving positivity then it becomes much harder for the person to like themselves.
I believe if I used mental health for my own short film I would need a character or some sort or other influence in order to be the antagonist as the person or thing raining down hate.
2020. [online] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P65pajLA9io> [Accessed 19 March 2020].
Developing the Story
As I was researching I knew that I wanted my short film to carry an emotional aspect. When I was looking into the reasons why someone would be driving somewhere I was trying to think of a place or event which carries a lot of emotion by default. One of the ideas I had was a funeral.
The story could be following a Mum on her way to a funeral, following a hearse. She would be devastated. During the storyline we would see flashbacks to her spending her time with her daughter, but as we go we also see that she could have been saved by her mum. The mum cannot take the funeral, afterwards she overdoses in the toilets.
This is a very early idea and has will be taking inspiration from Little Miss Sunshine. It has done this by the inside view of everyone in the car during the travelling part of the story. I would take that idea and do it inside of either a hearse, or more likely the limousine which follows behind the hearse.
The idea I initially had was that throughout the travel to the funeral you are seeing flashbacks from the mother about memories of the loved one. However as the memories progress you see them start to take a turn and it eventually reveals that the loved one could have been saved by the mother. This is revealed just after the overdose. However, after watching the short film 'Funeral' I have had second thoughts about the idea of using flashbacks. In the short film the creator has gone down the route of not displaying who or how the person died until the very end. This allowed you to see the emotional struggle that the protagonist was going through, making it a little bit more touching to the reader.
YouTube. 2020. The Funeral - Drama Short Film. [online] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrPfQocBdIw> [Accessed 23 March 2020].
The use of the dialogue over the top of the footage to help show the struggle that the guy is going through. This is because you are hearing inside of his head and you begin to feel like you are connected because of this. Its adding engagement to the audience.
The Story line
After spending some time thinking about different aspects of one of the initial ideas I have had for my story above I have settled on the fact that it is definitely the story which I want to go with.
The travel aspect of it will be implemented into the film via the large part of it spent travelling to the funeral location.
A brief summary: A mother is on the way to a funeral for her daughter. On the way she is recalling memories of the time she had spent with her daughter. The memories proceed to cause discomfort to the mother as she travels to the funeral. The memories are causing discomfort this is because as she continues to get closer to where the funeral is happening the memories begin to reveal how the daughter died. The final memory shows how the daughter could have been saved by the mother and how it was her fault she died. This last memory happens just after the mother collapses whilst talking at the funeral from an overdose as she could not live with the fact she killed her daughter.
Comments
Post a Comment