Thursday, 13 September 2012

Direction Unit - Developed Idea for Park Life

For my Direction Unit I have been given the theme of 'Fight' and the prop 'Bicycle'. Getting a bicycle in my short film didn't seem like too hard an idea, it could be easily incorporated within my piece, but it took me a while before I managed to think of what I could do for a fight. I was debating with myself whether to go for a full on physical fight, or a passive-aggressive/emotional fight OR whether to portray the fight having already happened at the start of the piece. I figured with only a maximum of 20 words of dialogue, it might be rather challenging to display a verbal/emotional fight, so I decided to use the theme fight in two senses.
My story is simply about a young lady who is addicted to crack-cocaine. She looks a mess from the start; no make up on, scruffy hair, dirt on her face and clothes. She will be wearing ripped jeans, also dirty, and a slightly oversized jumper or hoodie, that looks very old and worn. She has an old rusty bicycle (yet to be obtained - still wondering where to get a bike from) and she cycles in to the park to a obviously predetermined place to meet her drug dealer. While she cycles to this bench it will cut between shots of her cycling, and a man (her drug dealer) who is just walking through the forest. As he is walking towards the meeting place, he spies a metal pole on the floor, and picks it up. As he is walking along he will be dragging it across the floor, against trees etc. before hiding it up the sleeve of his hoodie. At this point you only see him from behind. He wears track suit bottoms, a hoodie with the hood up, and a flat peak cap underneath the hood. He wears the cap in a way that you can not see his face.
When they meet at the bench, a brief acknowledgment of each other is given, and they sit down. The girl hands him some money, and he gets out a small bag of something (the crack cocaine) and passes it to her, before standing up and walking off. Eventually the girl gets on her old bike to go, and as she is cycling along a path, the dealer suddenly appears directly in front of her forcing her to stop the bike.
"What do you want?" she asks, which are the only words of dialogue in the whole short. A close up of the dealer's face is seen, though all is covered up by hood and cap apart from his mouth, and he smiles sinisterly. The pole drops out from in his sleeve to his hand, and he smacks the girl with it, knocking her off her bike. He proceeds to hit her a few more times, before taking back the drugs that he gave her, and jumping on her bike and cycling off, leaving the girl in a bloody mess on the floor.

The theme fight works in two ways here:
1. The actual physical fight at the end where the dealer attacks her
and
2. The internal struggle and 'fight' with herself against the drugs. Yes she submits to buying, but I will make out during her walk and the way she looks and when she's on the bench, that there is a fight within herself going on.

<<< This is the kind of bicycle I would like to try and acquire. Old and worn - obviously the girl spends her money to get her fix, which is why she does not have nice clothes or a nice bike.









<<< The look of my drug dealer...
<<<  ... and his weapon of choice

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