Maxwell Crawford: Foundation portfolio

Foundation Portfolio planning

Concept

PTSD

My target audience is teenagers aged 16 to 18.

The thriller conventions i will include in my film are:

Mirrors/reflections: to show inner conflict.
Quick cuts: to imitate racing thoughts
A character that is mentally unstable.
Darkness/shadows:represent inner dark
Blood: to represent pain.
Distorted voices
Lonliness

Plot:

Christian is in class and his teacher is giving the there report cards. His teacher is telling him how well he did and congratulating on all of his A's, but he hears other voices telling him what a failure he is. As he walks down the corridor he looks at himself in the window and his reflection begins to move on its own and talk to him, discouraging him. As he enters the locker room one of the other boys begins to congratulate him, but he imagines the boy tormenting him. He punches the boy and when he comes out of his hallucination he sees everyone staring him and realises what he had just done. He walks away confused and angry, with himself, into the bathroom. He walks up to the sink and begins to take his pills, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), wash his face. He looks at himself in the mirror and his reflection once again takes its own form and once again begins talking to him in a demoralising way. Christian gets angry at his reflection and throws his pills container at the mirror. The mirror cracks he stares at his reflection then he runs out of the room. His reflection is still there and we see a disjointed psychotic smile.

Characters:

Christian: He is a teenage boy in his high school years. In his past years he was susceptible to major bullying because of how smart he was. He now suffers from PTSD because of those traumatic experiences. He takes SSRI pills to aid him. Part of his PTSD is that he imagines people bullying and demoralising him even when they are actually encouraging and congratulating him.

Practicalities of filming/content:

Although our film has people changing and reflections with their own kind of conscience, it is still realistic as this is all imagination in Christians mind.
The only health and safety is that we will have our actor fake punch another actor (they could possibly accidentally actually hit the other actor), and they will also be smashing a mirror so we have to be careful of any glass that might fly off or be on the ground.

Treatment

A Treatment For PTSD

Prepared by Max

09/05/18

It is proposed that this film will be of 1 to 2 minutes duration, and that it will be filmed at City Impact Church School (this is a good location as it is easy access as our media studies lab is at school so we won't have to transport the gear far. It also has the school and bathroom set up that we need).

The film will include the following conventions of thriller films:

Mirrors/reflections: to show inner conflict.
Quick cuts: to imitate racing thoughts
A character that is mentally unstable.
Darkness/shadows:represent inner dark
Blood: to represent pain.
Distorted voices
Lonliness

After watching the openings of The Dark Knight, Taken, and Edge Of Tomorrow, I have been influenced by the intensity and suspense that the have given and will co-operate these into my short film opening.

Some of the problems that could be encountered are that we need some mirrors that we are able to smash and also the glass is also a safety hazard that we will need to be aware of. And we will need to act the fake punch without anyone actually getting hit.

Brainstorm

We used this scene from Spider-Man as an idea for our mirror conversation. As it shows the character having a mental conversation with his reflection/conscience.

We used these pictures as an idea for our cracked mirror reflection shot.

Story Board

I was incharge of creating our story board this time. In our past two films our storyboards had been the bare minimum. So for this one I have made the pictures a lot more detailed a written a bit more as well.

Shot List

I was in charge of the shot list

Script

Vernnon wrote this script

Props

Pills: (These are used to represent his problems/mental illness, as SSRI is the pills that you take when you have PTSD or depression. It also shows that he is succumbing to his illness which is taking over him.)