TREATMENT

IMAGINE PAGEANT
Short Film

Our short film is about a young girl suffering from anorexia nervosa.

Our short film is aimed at young people aged 17-25 of both genders. Although the majority of people who suffer from anorexia are girls, Imagine pageant is still aimed at males as this short film should raise awareness for such a taboo subject. We aim to target this particular audience as it is this age group that is most effected. We are aware that eating disorders can start at any age but we do not want younger girls to be exposed this, then worry over these issues as well as the dealing with the pressure from today’s society and media.

We plan to film Imagine Pageant on and around the streets of Parkgate. The main part will be filmed at a park and the end part will be filmed in Adam License’s house. There are three characters in out short film, one of which does not talk throughout the short film. This is Anna, an imaginary friend created by the girl in the short film; she encourages the anorexia and is a stereotypical example of a ‘friend’, as is the girl. There will be one other voice in the short film, but this person won’t be seen. The girl’s dad will be heard stomping up the stairs and shouting to her. The main character will be wearing a larger puffy coat to cover her figure. The other girl will be wearing red, this is as the colour red is often used to symbolise the eating disorder anorexia.

Camera Angles
When we shoot we will use an establishing shot at the beginning to show the audience where the short film is taking place. The characters will be filmed differently according to their role. As the girl is the main character we will use some close up shots. We will concentrate mainly on medium close ups and long shots, facing the girl head on. When the girl and Anna are walking towards the swings they wont be talking so we will film this from behind.

Mise en scene
To create a sense of diegesis and verisimilitude in our short film we must follow the rules of continuity and make sure it makes sense in terms of the time and place the story takes place. Production designs in terms of character types and make up have an extremely important role to play in mediating character types and roles to the audience. The girl will be wearing a large puffy coat; this is typical clothing of a person living in England on a cold night. It is essentially the costume that mediates most information about the girl. However the girl in red will be dressed diversely regardless of what the weather is like. The gesture in which the main girl acts will be casual and informal, as though she is just around friends. The only iconography used in our short film is the red colour of Anna’s clothing. The lighting used will be mainly natural light- high key lighting will be used to make the scenery appear natural or realistic, apart from when the girl is at her home. The lighting we will use then will be artificial, such as lights and lamps. Lighter and darker areas within the frame will help us to create the overall composition of each shot, thus guiding us our attention to certain objects (the box of food). We could also use low key lighting in the bedroom as this could connote a sense of sadness and secretiveness; the diegetic world she is in is cold. W are aware the overall colour on screen will change from outside to inside due to the white balance however this will just add to the verisimilitude.

Sound
We have a few ideas for background. We have not chosen a song for definite yet, we were thinking of using copyrighted music, however if we do this we will not be keeping to the generic conventions of a short film. Another idea we may choose to explore is to use a song produced and performed by Adams band ‘The Friday Night Dillusion’. This will make our background completely unique and will allow us to choose a song to fit the theme of our video properly. We will be using music to manipulate the audience’s emotions. Direct mode of address will be used in our short film as it is a monologue. This means that the diegetic effect will be broken as the girl will be directly addressing the audience, thereby acknowledging the presence of the audience and admitting the fact that they are watching a film. The mode of address that will be used in our short film is peer-to-peer this is because the girl is talking to the audience as though they are her friends. The girl’s accent, dialect and colloquialisms will show the audience that she is not from an upper class background; we will include regional dialect in the script of our short film so the audience become aware of the location of the girl.

Health and Safety Notes
When we begin to film we will make sure not to film near any busy roads or dangerous areas. We will take go out in a group/pairs to film to ensure that we are as safe as possible. We will also let somebody else know what time we expect to have finished filming.

Our plans for our storyboard are to draw up our ideas onto paper, we will do this during lesson time and in our spare time, we will then scan the storyboard and upload it into Windows movie maker. If necessary we will later recreate it in a Web2.0 format.