Credits

Because of the difficulties in filming, we decided that instead of putting the credits into the start of the diary, we would edit them in afterwards. The credits we are using are:

Starring Lucy Formby
Directed by Kayleigh Protheroe and Ruth Halliday
Produced by Samantha Protheroe and Lucy Formby
Music by Lucy Formby and Chris Formby

Research

As the focus of our opening sequence is depression and abuse, we looked at several charities to help us develop and understand the characters and storyline:

The Mood Foundation is a charity set up by a former sufferer of depression, to try and find the best treatment for individual sufferers, and to help them pay for it. Mood has many facts and statistics about depression on its homepage, and we were able to use them to help us develop our film and main character.

Mind exists to help people deal with their mental health problems. It helped us develop our story and characters by providing information about charities.

Women's Aid is centered on domestic violence and the protection of women and children living with abusers.

Beat is focused on eating disorders - a major aspect of Sophie's depression.

The information we learned from all these charities was very helpful in developing our storyline and the character of Sophie.

Storyboard and Shooting Script

From the storyboard shown above, I wrote this script over the weekend, and it still needs a little work but in general it covers what we need to show in the film.

SOPHIE (V.O., THROUGHOUT)

(Various words picked out from the diary, finishing with
“And I just feel so alone”.)

INT. BEDROOM – LATE EVENING

Sophie walks into her bedroom and sits at the desk. She opens the diary, which has the title “Welcome to MY World” on the cover, and flicks through several pages, which contain the credits and the first page of writing.

INT. BATHROOM – EARLY EVENING

Sophie is sitting on the closed lid of the toilet, holding an open pair of scissors to her arm, preparing to cut herself. She hesitates, then closes the scissors, putting them down on the edge of the sink.

INT. BEDROOM – LATE EVENING

Sophie turns the page of her diary and picks up the scissors on her desk with her left hand, looks at them, and puts them back again.

INT. DINING ROOM – EARLY EVENING

Sophie is sitting at the table at dinner with her parents. She is not eating; instead pushing the food around on her plate.

FATHER
Sophie, eat your dinner.

SOPHIE
I'm not hungry.

FATHER
I don't care if you're hungry or not, eat it!

MOTHER
Just eat it, sweetheart.

SOPHIE
I'm not hungry!

Sophie gets up to leave.

FATHER
Sit down and eat it.

Sophie runs out of the room.

INT. BEDROOM – LATE EVENING

Sophie looks down at her right hand, wrapped in a bandage. She pulls down her sleeve to cover it, and turns another page of her diary.

INT. BATHROOM – EARLY EVENING

Sophie slits her right wrist.

INT. BEDROOM – LATE EVENING

Sophie's tears fall on the diary and smudge the ink.

EXT. SCHOOL PLAYGROUND – LUNCH

Sophie is leaning against a wall, standing with a group of friends, who are talking amongst themselves. None of them speaks to Sophie.

EXT. SCHOOL PLAYGROUND – EARLY AFTERNOON

Sophie is still where she was earlier, but the playground is now empty. Sophie pushes herself up and walks across the empty playground to the gates.

INT. BEDROOM – LATE EVENING

Sophie gets up and walks to her bed, lifts a sheet and takes a bottle of alcohol. There are several other bottles, full and empty, under the bed. Sophie walks back to the desk, opens the bottle, and drinks. She turns another page of the diary.

INT. BEDROOM – NIGHT (ALT #1)

Sophie is lying on her bed, face down, screaming into her pillow.

INT. BEDROOM – NIGHT (ALT #2)

Sophie is lying face down on her bed, crying.

INT. BEDROOM – LATE EVENING

Sophie turns another page of the diary, and removes a plaster from her arm. Blood drips onto the diary. She puts the plaster back on.

INT. BEDROOM – NIGHT

Sophie's father is standing in the doorway to her bedroom. Sophie is sat on the bed, duvet pulled around her, looking scared.

INT. BEDROOM – LATE EVENING

Sophie closes the diary, turns off the light, and gets into bed. She lies awake, staring at the ceiling.

Start of film

Props

For our film sequence, we will be using many props to help us create an effective opening.

The scene that connects the sequence is Sophie sitting at her desk, writing in her diary. The diary is an effective tool which creates a further insight into the way Sophie sees the world, and serves to pull together seperate incidents in the confusion of her mind.

One important scene in the opening sequence is that in which Sophie self-harms. She uses scissors to cut into her wrist, and they serve as a significant prop, only used very briefly, but with a huge effect both on the character and the audience.

Another similarly significant scene is the one in which Sophie and her parents eat. The main props are the cutlery, plates and food - Sophie doesn't eat, creating a greater image of the depression from which she is suffering.

In the scene in which Sophie contemplates suicide, we use the television remote, and the paracetamol she takes in an attempt at killing herself.

In all, the props help shape the story and enhance clarity throughout. They serve a significant and necessary part in the sequence, making things easier for the actors and filling the important plot points.

180° Rule

This image (left) shows the 180° Rule and how to follow it when filming. It means that, when you have two characters in conversation, you cannot cross the straight line between them without showing the camera move across, because this would seemingly switch their

positions in the shot. If the 180° rule is broken, we have this problem (right). The characters have switched places on-screen and the visual effect is ruined.



Another time where the 180° rule is important is with one character, who is moving. If the 180° line is drawn in the direction the character is moving, this problem is avoided (right). The character in this image appears to have switched direction.

Character representation analysis

Our main character is Sophie, a 14-year-old girl who suffers from depression. To deal with her emotions, Sophie has turned to self-harm to distract from the emotional pain of her life. She is representative of the depressed, and is used to demonstrate the cost of leaving illnesses such as this untreated. Throughout the film, the audience would see Sophie getting worse and worse, leading to tragic consequences.

Sophie's father is an irritable, easily angered character. He is unsure of how best to handle his daughter, and is infuriated by his lack of control. He cares about his family but expects everything to run smoothly and can't understand when it doesn't. He retreats to anger when things don't work, rather than sitting down and talking them through. He represents the people who don't understand, or make any real attempt to understand, the seriousness of depression.

Sophie's mother is a quiet, gentle woman who isn't really sure what's going on. She understands her husband's anger, and sides with him in most arguments, but tries to keep the peace, and is incapable of shouting. She is representative of the people who aren't aware of what's going on, and don't see the obvious when it's happening right in front of them.

Location report

This is the desk where Sophie writes her diary, used in several scenes throughout the opening sequence, serving as a connection between the different scenes. Sophie's diary is significant because it gives the audience another form of insight into her emotions, and draws all the events of the sequence together.

Sophie runs up these stairs after an argument with her parents over dinner. This creates a physical barrier between her, upstairs, and her parents, downstairs, allowing her to run to her bed (below) and cry, feeling safer and more secure with the separation.

Music

We considered several songs for our film - including Martina McBride's Concrete Angel, Kelly Clarkson's Low, and Relient K's Be My Escape. The lyrics for the last song suited the film best, but the music was completely wrong, so we thought about getting the musical score, having Lucy play it on piano, and have a friend of ours sing it, because this would give us much better control over the speed of the whole thing where it was really far too upbeat for a melodramatic, saddening film; we could edit the lyrics where necessary - the first verse on its own would have been better suited to what we needed; and our friend's voice suited the whole thing much better than the vocals of Relient K, whose members are all male and enthusiastic.

We also considered using a more oxymoronic song - for example, Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong.

Eventually, we made the descision to have Lucy and her brother compose and play a piece for us. We are using this and an extract from Leona Lewis' Homeless in the final piece.

Positions and Crediting

Because I plan to do the credits in the same format as the title, I need to limit each position to one page so that I don't wind up using too much paper. So I've been thinking about the positions that need to be accredited and we think that this just about covers it:

1. Writer
2. Director
3. Actors
4. Camera Operators
5. Costume Manager
6. Prop Manager
7. Make-up
8. Sound
9. Special Effects

We haven't made all the decisions about who will be doing what here. Lucy is an actor and will be playing the main character, and we are considering further actors to play the parents; I am a writer and intend to write the script as soon as we have completed the storyboard. Any further than this, we are not sure what everyone's strengths are, and we prefer to wait to allocate these positions to the people who suit them best.