3 Act Structure
Act 1: Introduction
Starts with our protagonist character trying to get to sleep in bed, she keeps tossing and turning as she anxiously thinks about what's going to happen the next day. The lighting is low key. You can hear her thoughts racing in her head -echoes of things people have said to her and what she feels. Lullaby music is playing in the background but the sound is distorted, the girl looks around the room and she can't see anything but when she looks again there is a "monster" stood in the shadows holding a pocket watch.
The start of the narrative follows the girl as she goes about her day, everywhere she goes the anxiety monster follows, the ticking gets louder as she is put through different obstacles increasing her anxious thoughts and behaviours. The film starts as she gets ready for school/college, shots of her eating breakfast, getting her bag ready etc. just a normal day at school/college. Then she gets a message from her best friend asking whether she is ready for the presentation today showing that the character NEEDS to do a presentation and this is where everything goes wrong.
Act 2: Obstacles
Following the end of act 1 the protagonist finds her mood changing. She leaves the house to go to the bus, as she walks down the empty the anxiety monster is behind her. Her behaviour is changing, her hands tremble slightly as she gets her bus pass out, she's biting her lip nervously as she waits for the bus. The bus is late (first obstacle) she starts to tremble more, her fists clenching. Finally the bus comes, she gets on and sits down, the monster sitting behind her. Cut to her walking in to class late, the teacher shouts at her as she nervously takes her seat (obstacle 2). She looks at the blank computer screen and the monster is in the reflection. She keeps looking at the clock, she's getting more anxious, her knees are shaking and her breathe hitches as the constant ticking gets increasingly louder. It gets to the time of her presentation and everyone has already left the room she is alone with the teacher and the monster in the corner of the room. The teacher asks her to start and she shakily gets up and moves to the front, she stumbles trying to speak and she begins to panic saying the wrong things and stuttering as she tries to explain (obstacle 3) asking whether she can do the presentation again (first solution which fails) making the teacher tell her that she has failed yet another assignment telling her to gain more confidence and quick. As the teacher leaves the room, the girl breaks down and has a panic attack (biggest obstacle) crumpling on the floor in tears. The act ends with the monster stood over her holding a now broken clock over the girl's body. This is the lowest point as she she's no way out.
Act 3: Resolution
In act 3 the girl is now walking home, she's scared and alone as she see's no escape, as she looks around the monster is always right there in her eye line following her. She comes home and runs into her bedroom monster behind her. She begins to cry leaning against the bed curled up when her best friend knocks on the bedroom door, coming in slowly they sit beside her on the floor and tell her that they know something that can help her. (Resolution) Cut to 6 months later, girl walks into a building and into a room where a therapist/counsellor asks her 'are the monsters still there?' to which she responds: 'it's not a monster any more' showing a slight smile for the first time in the production, the production ends here with the audience hopefully forming the conclusion that it's about perception and that she's working on getting better.
Mood Board
Character Profiles
Robyn is the Protagonist character so the narrative follows her; it is about issues that involve her.
Lucas is not a main character but he is still a protagonist but he is referred to more as an ally to my protagonist.
The Anxiety Monster is the Antagonist character, the story follows the protagonist with the Monster being the thing that follows her around and causes the main obstacles for the protagonist.
Robyn is the Protagonist character so the narrative follows her; it is about issues that involve her.
Lucas is not a main character but he is still a protagonist but he is referred to more as an ally to my protagonist.
The Anxiety Monster is the Antagonist character, the story follows the protagonist with the Monster being the thing that follows her around and causes the main obstacles for the protagonist.
Research Diary
- Who is your cast?
- What information can you get about your narrative theme/topic? (from a reliable secondary source)
- What locations are available to you? what do they look like?
- Who is your target audience? How can you prove it, linking to similar films, audience research panels, audience profiles?
Cast
- 16-17 year old girl, wears casual clothes -lots of jeans and hoodies, has access to long sleeved t-shirts/jackets etc. Has blonde or brown hair that's relatively long.
- 16-18 year old boy, taller than the girl, has casual clothes, hair colour isn't important. Has a bag.
- Person- need a teacher to tell the girl she's failed, to see the presentation. Then to be the voice of the therapist/counsellor at the end.
- Teenager- they need to be the 'monster' meaning they have to wear all black, wear a cloak with a hood, has access to a watch/clock they can carry around. (No speech for this one- they'll be whispers but not direct dialogue)
Information about my narrative theme/topic
Summary: When I looked at the statistics for people with mental health issues around my age range I found that a lot of the information I gathered was what I had originally thought. The information is full of statistics about the percentage of people (finding out their age) showing that 1 in 10 children/young people aged 5-16 suffer from a mental health disorder, this shows that it is common which will make the topic relatable.
Summary: reading through the article I found another big statistic '10 million people in the UK suffer from anxiety problems' and that it can be triggered by major events in life such as: a marriage/relationship break up or something stressful such as education. It can possibly be triggered by past events when you weren't able to express/deal with emotions. It suggest that people like teachers, nurses and college students are more likely to suffer from anxiety due to stress.
Links: http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/social-anxiety/Pages/Social-anxiety.aspx
Summary: For my film I had to really go into depths with getting the anxiety to look realistic and believable. I decided to look at the signs and symptoms of Social Anxiety to be able to show people how they cope and what their struggles are. This helped me to start to think of dialogue and the way my character should say their lines.
Links: http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/social-anxiety/Pages/Social-anxiety.aspx
Summary: For my film I had to really go into depths with getting the anxiety to look realistic and believable. I decided to look at the signs and symptoms of Social Anxiety to be able to show people how they cope and what their struggles are. This helped me to start to think of dialogue and the way my character should say their lines.
Locations
Summary: knowing how stressful college and school can become I wanted to set something in everyday life, something that can be relatable to young people and that the older generation can understand as well. I plan to use classrooms within the college and areas where there are lots of people which can show the pressure of having so many other people around you. Using public means of transport can show the change of time and it can also show what problems can occur from transport due to it being late or new time changes for means of transport. I also find that people that are insecure or anxious at school can often be different at home, they are usually more confident at home than in other; more social or stressful situations.
Target Audience
I feel that my target audience will be mainly teenagers because they are in the same age range and teenagers relate to other teenagers or similar situations. Given the topic is about anxiety and stress then a lot of teenagers will be able to relate to those feelings and they can learn something new or gain more of an insight into what some people can go through. I think that people that watch documentaries could like this film because it will inform people and it may be about similar topics from programmes such as: Don't Call Me Crazy. I think that aspirers may like it as it is something new and it is all about changing someone's perspective and helping them to understand much like social campaigns such as Stonewall who often make films or projects which take a different stand on it or that come with an approach that's not always common or that is shocking.
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