Mapping Out the Scenes for the Short Film

Mapping Out the Scenes for the Short Film

Before we start to storyboard the short film we decided to create an outline of all the scenes that would be in the film. We decided to do this because it will help us when it comes to storyboarding because we will have an outline of what should happen in every group of shots.


Our short film is going to be made up of 8 or 9 scenes. This is because we cannot decide how we want to end the short film. The endings we have come up with are:

• There is a scene where the protagonist appears to be committing suicide. Then there is a cut to black. Then there is a fade from black to a news show where one of the news stories is that a teenager has committed suicide in Haywards Heath. This ending clearly tells the audience that it is the protagonist that has committed suicide.
• The other ending is where there is a cut to black from the scene where the protagonist gets stood up by the person he was supposed to be meeting (the person he was talking to on Facebook). Then there is a fade from black to the news show saying that a teenager has committed suicide in Haywards Heath. This ending doesn't clearly show to the audience that the protagonist has committed suicide and it leaves them questioning what has happened. This could potentially have more of an impact on the audience because it is implying that the protagonist has committed suicide.

To decide which ending we will use in the final short film we are going to film both endings. Then we will have a test screening with some members of the target audience to see which ending they prefer.

The Scenes for the Short Film:

1. The first scene of the film is a montage of the protagonist and his friend spending a lot of time together. In this montage the two characters will be playing video games together and kicking a football to each other. In this montage, we need to show that the two characters are very happy when they are with each other, however, when they are not together they are very lonely and sad. Some of the locations for this include: woods; bedroom; open field.
2. In this scene, the protagonist is watching the TV when a news show comes on and one of the news stories is that his friend is dead. Something that we need to decide is whether this is a headline news stories or a side news story, maybe the friend committing suicide is a side news story and when the protagonist commits suicide it is a headline news story which connotes to the audience that at the end the protagonist has committed suicide. The location for this scene is a lounge. Some editing things that we are going to do for this scene are: we are going to put a pure green picture on the TV screen so that we can cut it out on post production using the chroma keyer. Also, we are going to film the news show with a green screen and put some things that make it look like a news show behind the character as he is talking.
3. In this scene we see the protagonist going through his normal life, however, through the use of close-up shots we see that he is very sad because he doesn't have his friend to go and hang out with. In this scene, we will see some long shots of the protagonist as he walks along on his own and there is nobody around him (he is completely alone). We will see the protagonist kicking a ball against a wall on his own. Then he walks across a field as he is heading home. After this, he walks across a bridge in the middle of a road to show his loneliness. Then he walks through the woods that he used to walk through with his friend.
4. In this scene we see the protagonist sitting at the top of his garden looking down at the house. He is just staring down at the house with a sad facial expression. The location for this scene will be in the garden and possibly it will be at Jake's house. In this scene, there will be an over the shoulder shot of the shoulder of the protagonist as he looks at the ground. In this shot, the focus will be on the ground and the protagonist's shoulder will be out of focus. Then there will be a focus pull to bring the focus to the protagonist's shoulder. After this there will be a cut to a close-up of the protagonists face showing his sad facial expression.
5. In this scene, we will see the protagonist as he walks through the woods. There will be some long shots to show him walking, also, there will be some close-ups to show his sad facial expression as he walks. Then his dead friend will walk past him which connotes that his mind is starting to play tricks on him. The protagonist will smile at the friend and say "hi" because he doesn't realise who it is. Then when he realises the person has already walked past him so he has to turn around and the friend is not there anymore. This is when the protagonist realises that he needs to find new friends or do something to get over the loss of his only friend.
6. In this scene we see the protagonist go into his room and we see him log onto Facebook and start talking to a random person. The protagonist and the other person agree and time and a place to meet.
7. This is the scene where the protagonist goes to meet the person he has been talking to on Facebook. However, the other person doesn't show up so the protagonist gets stood up.
8. In this scene, we see the protagonist as he prepares to commit suicide. He is standing at the side of the road. There is a close-up on his facial expression showing that he is content on what he is about to do. Then there is a long shot of the protagonist on the pavement. Then there is a pan showing the road he is looking at and the protagonist himself. Finally, there will be an extreme close-up on the road as the protagonist steps out into the road. Just as his foot touches the floor there is a cut to black.
9. This is the final scene of the film and in the scene, there is a fade from black into a news show where one of the news stories is that a young teenager has committed suicide. This teenager was the protagonist that has committed suicide. Then the film will end with a fade to black after the audience find out that the protagonist has been killed.

Here are some pictures of the group as we were coming up with all the scenes that are involved in the short film:

Further Development of the Ending:

When we were originally mapping out the story and discussing the end we, as a group, didn't like the ending that we had come up with. This is why we created 2 possible endings that we could use. We were going to create both endings edit them together and then do a test screening with the target audience and see which one had the best feedback. However, after having a group discussion about the ending we decided we would change one of the endings slightly and stick with it. The ending we are now going to have is:

• The protagonist will be at the side of a busy road just staring at the road and the cars that pass him.
• Whilst he is starring he will not move at all and his facial expression will show him looking very omniscient. 
• Then we will have a cut to black.

This means that there will be no news report saying that a person has committed suicide. We decided to change this for a couple of reasons:

• This better fits the Social Realistic genre of the film because the new report at the end saying someone has killed themself is not very realistic and throws off the feeling of the whole story.
• Additionally, because this short film is only 5 minutes long we want the ending to have as much of an impact as it can and if we just show that the protagonist is dead at the end it could have less of an impact on the audience, therefore, cutting to black and leaving the audience to wonder what happened next could have more of an impact.
• On top of this, the ending was very extreme for the situation that the character was in which made it seem unrealistic which is not what we wanted for our short film.