Short Film Treatment- Offline

Log Line: A girl allows other peoples harmful words to characterize herself; therefore leading her to believing that there is only one way out of her situation, and her friend has to beat the clock in order to save her.

Two-way screen shot of two girls walking through a hall way in school. The two girls both look content with their lives. Crowded hall ways, loud voices, posters on the wall; all resembles the usual high school setting.

The two girls finally meet up outside the school and talk about their day. We see their instant connection. We also see that they are both wearing friendship necklaces showing that they are best friends.

The girls names are Selena and Tiffany. Tiffany asks Selena, "Did anything happened today and how are you holding up". Selena responded "No and I'm doing fine... just fine". Through Selena's facial expressions, there seems to be discomfort arising. On that not, Selena quickly says, "I have to go, bye"and gets on her bike and rides away without looking back.

Without any notice, Tiffany ignores the instant goodbye and heads the opposite way.

Selena rides her bike up the driveway of a two story house. As she enters the front door, no one seems to be present in the house. Selena runs upstairs and approaches a door with her name on it. Instantly we know that she lives in this house with her family.

As she enters the semi-dark room, she dashes over to her laptop and turns in on. "Come on, turn on fast you damn computer", Selena says this while anxiously waiting.

The next thing we see is the computer screen on a social networking site. Selena starts to close her eyes in hope that everything she sees will disappear.

As she keeps scrolling down, we see nasty comments being posted about her back and forth among a couple of people.

Tears start to roll down her face without hesitation. Selena's hand slowly leaves her face ,that was wiping away the tears, and covers up her left wrist. She looks down at her wrist with scars on it and then back up at the comments on the screen. Screaming at the top of her lungs, "AHHHH!!!!".

She frantically gets up and goes to the bathroom. "WHAM!" the bathroom door is slammed  shut. The tears from Selena's hopeless soul starts to continue pouring out. She looks up at the mirror, makeup is running down her face.

Broken voices start to fade in and surround her. You’re so ugly. Why are you so fat? You have no friends, you’re such an outcast. You should just kill yourself. No one will care. No one will miss you.

As the voices get louder, the faint images of the people who hate her start to float around, present in the mirror.

Selena starts to breath quickly in panic and she turns around, trying to see if they are really there, standing behind her talking to her.

She turns back toward the mirror and the voices get louder and faster and start to overlap.
Selena shuts her eyes tightly, trying to block them out but to no avail. The faces get closer to her image in the mirror and she opens her mouth to scream.

The mirror cracks in her hands and she opens her eyes to see her own reflection distorted in the different cracks of the mirror.

"The mirror is broken, it can’t be fixed. There is nothing left of it." Selena says to herself in distress. The cell phone in her back pocket rings. She takes it out and sees that Tiffany is calling. She forwards the call to voicemail.

Selena then turns off her cell phone. Tiffany keeps trying to call hoping that Selena will pick up. When Tiffany doesn't get any ringer, she knows something is up because Selena never ignores her calls.

As the tension keeps rising, Selena keeps moving towards her conclusion of ending everything and anything.

Tiffany then notices that Selena deactivated all her social networking sites besides one. And on that one, she posted "Goodbye world".

Tiffany realizes that Selena is going to commit suicide. Tiffany dials Selena's mom number; she doesn't get any answer and leaves a voice message. "I think Selena is trying to kill herself. I'm going to the house! Get help!"

Knowing that there is little time she grabs her keys and heads out the door to her car. She frantically tries to put the keys in the ignition. Once she gets it in, the car’s  battery is dead and won’t start. This gives Tiffany the only choice but to run.


A split screen is used again to show Tiffany running to help save Selena's life while Selena is gathering her last thoughts before she severs all ties.

The tension and anxiety between the two keeps rising. As Selena is literally about to finish what she thinks others wish they could do to her, Tiffany brakes through the door. "STOP!!!"

As Tiffany huffs and puffs, she recollects her breaths and explains to Selena that, "It's not worth it, let the haters hate. So what? All you need is to surround yourself with positive thoughts and people... You need to admit to getting help Selena."

Selena silently looks to down at what lies in her hands.

Momentarily she says, "Tiffany, I need help". She drops the objects, resembling her letting go of the past and hoping to move forward by getting the necessary help.

New Bell Schedule Segment Critique

 

My partner Isabella and I came up with the idea of doing a segment on our high school's new bell schedule. We came up with this idea by looking at the differences in our school over the past couple of years. One of the first things that popped in our mind was the new bell schedule. The research that we had to do was to find out exactly why the bell schedule was changed. In order to find our answer, we had to go to the principal to ask her a few questions. We found our interviewers by finding people that we would get the most information out of. So we went to the principal for the reasoning behind the bell schedule, a teacher for her input and 2 students for their input as well. We wanted to get the views about the bell schedule from  different people. Our questions were most definitely focused and direct. Because our segment was about the new bell schedule the only b-roll I could really intend on getting was of a clock and class rooms with students working. The b-roll came out really well with the different angles we had. 

Our location was our high school. For the interviews it depended. For instance, when we interviewed the principal, we had her in her house sitting at her desk with books, diploma's, and papers in the background. Then for the teacher we had her in her classroom with displays of what class it was in the background. Lastly the students we interviewed outside around the campus. One interview we had a mustang in the back resembling the school mascot and the other one we used part of the campus as the background. I think our most creative shot of our b-roll was an ECU of a student writing in her planner. We also had another creative shot, which was a CU of two students and in between then you could see the teacher teaching in front of them. We didn't have a lot of camera movements besides framing and panning, but for the most part our camera movements were smooth. There definitely wasn't any excessive zooming or panning in our shots. We would zoom into an object or person before we would record the shot so that we wouldn't run into shaky zoom shots. For all of our shots, we used natural lighting. We didn't have to use a lighting kit at all because during the days we shot, the natural lighting was just right. It wasn't too bright and it wasn't too dark. In my past film projects I have run into problems with the audio, but for the first time our audio was synched together correctly and the audio level was perfect. We didn't really have to adjust the interview audio. 

In the beginning of our segment we used voice-over to describe what our segment was going to explore. We said that we were going to look into why we got a new bell schedule and what the students/faculty would get out of it. I believe our segment was informative because not all the students knew the reasons behind the new bell schedule and thats what we wanted to inform them on. We wanted them to have some background information on it before they went around saying how much they disliked it and so on.  In the end of our segment we informed the students and faculty what the new bell schedule was. So we made a scrolling text saying each day of the week and what classes were dropped (since our schedule was dropping classes almost every day). And we also informed them on what days they were getting out early and at what times. After the whole segment was about the motives for the new bell schedule we wanted the students to actually see what the schedule was like and what the principal meant by a compromise between last year and this years bell schedule. 

Our b-roll reflects the voice over of some of the interviews because it's continuity. For example, as one of the students talk about this new bell schedule having more consistent time to see your teachers, b-roll of a class is shown. Also when on of the students talked about how the schedule makes the load of binders and books heavier, footage is shown of a backpack and a bunch of books and binders next to it. The transitions we used for the video were mostly fade out-fade in. We used this when switching between interviews. On the other hand for the audio transitions were cross fades; i believe we only used that in the beginning and end of our segment. We didn't use any animations or filters in our segment. And we also didn't have any jump-cuts or glitches in our edit. The only thing we had to fix and edit out was unnecessary footage and interviews that was repetitive and over- drawn. 

What I like best from our segment is probably the b-roll and the framing of the interviews. I feel like their all a deep focus and have details to them. If we had more time, I would probably re-do the interviews and the questions. I would want to go more in-depth with the topic and try to get under-the-surface questions. After working on this project, the most important lesson I can take with me is to go more in-depth with ideas and go under-the-surface because thats when segments or films attract the audience. I will also remember to make sure to try and use cinematography as one of my main elements in a film. And lastly I will take with me to remember to think more on the positive side of things and not focus mainly on the negatives. 

Character In Time

A boy, roughly around the age of 19 sits at the window looking out into this unfamiliar city that he now resides in. All he can hear is his own guilty conscious and the honking of horns from the cars that are down below. As he looks out into this city, flashbacks occur through his mind. Time rewinds slowly through his head. It all started with the day he turned 18. (Flashbacks occurs) He is the kind of high school teenager who doesn't take school seriously and hangs out with the wrong group of kids; always looking for trouble. The police are apart of his life, ever since freshmen year. Once he turned 18 his family said to him that, they didn't want to deal with anymore of his trouble making and that he needs to learn how to depend on himself and no one else. So he went and got a minimum-wage paying job. It wasn't the easiest way to make money, but he knew that it was all he could get with his poor grades. Things went well for a couple months, until he got back into his old habits. Sooner then later he got fired from his job and was about to be evicted from his small apartment. Not knowing where to run to for help, he knew this was a reality check from himself.

He realized that he needed to move to another city to start fresh, meet new people, and get away from the old ones. He snaps back into reality where he now sits at the window looking out into this big city feeling alone; not knowing where to start. This is his new beginning; a beginning to a better, successful lifestyle.