Preliminary Task Ideas

Initial Ideas

• Kidnapping- A girl is taken from night club by a hooded figure, It seems as much as she tries to break free and call for help, no one can hear her scream. 
• Drug deal gone wrong- One man is in the lowest point of his life and is walking home from his mind numbingly boring day job, something that connotes his life perfectly as frankly he is bored. He decides to take the long way home as he would just be doing nothing with his life there as well. Though he is not a thrill seeker, when he hears the sounds of a heated argument he cant help but to get a closer look. This does not work in his favour however, as it becomes clear this is a gang meeting that is not going well. The protagonist being his clumsy self looses his balance and ends up falling from his sniper like view and ends up being the centre of attention for every gang member present. As his heart rate rises, he knows this isn't going to end well for him. 

Chosen Idea

I preferred the idea that the protagonist would be In the lowest point of his life, but over compensating with humour. Being a cathartic character for the audience as he's relate-able, but still gives them a sense of accomplishment as their lives are more successful than his. He would wear an un-ironed white or pale blue shirt to connote school boy innocence, could suggest his mother still buys his clothes or that he started his dead end job straight out of school. This in turn making him a young character that can play into the 'young and stupid' stereotype.  His hair would be unmade and just pushed back and finger brushed as he has overslept and not had time to look as presentable as he should.

Plot:

The protagonist called Jake is late for his office job as seen from when he checks his old watch and starts rushing to get out of the door. He sneaks in heading towards his desk while co-workers snigger showing this to be a regular occurrence for him.  Before he can sit down his boss calls him into his office. -This being the moment where I can film the match on action shot and the shot/reverse shot. His boss then proceeds to warn Jake that if he is late again he will loose his job and is sent home. It is at this point that we see Jake check his watch again and cut to a panicked look on his face, making the audience question why. I will then cross cut to a girl who's dressed for a night out in a white dress to connote innocence but draws attention to her because of its length and style. She already seems a bit tipsy as she must have taken part in drink before her decision to go out. She has curled hair which shows she has put effort into her appearance and converges with the female stereotype. -The goal with this character is to convey to the audience that she is sexual in nature and wants the attention, she likes getting into trouble and thinks she can handle herself shown by the fact she is walking the streets alone. However she has no social awareness and because of her niaveity thinks shes safe anywhere. This proves true until we see that she is being followed by a dark hooded figure. not being able to identify anything apart from its gender as he has a broad build and is tall, puts the audience on edge as it makes them ask the question what does he want with her? Is he going to kill her? He follows her into an ally where he grabs her and restricts her arms and covers her mouth so we only hear muffled screams. -I feel this would be a good opportunity to show close ups of the hooded man, as we see his clenching fists and his mouth smiling as we hear him breathing heavily. Its at this point when we crosscut back to Jake, we see him running urgently. hes sweaty suggesting hes been running at full speed for quite a while, intensifying the urgency of his task. as he gets closer to his destination it becomes clear to the audience that we've seen these streets before and hes running towards the hooded man and the woman. This is the moment that the audience will learn his life isn't as run down as they think, and that he maybe a secret vigilante. When he reaches the ally I believe that showing a birds eye view shot of them all will allow the audience to see the proxemics between all the characters. The final moment of this scene is when we see a mid shot of the hooded figure, he steps forward allowing Jake to see his mouth from the light from the ally light but the hood casting a shadow over the rest of his face.(This also showing that the Mise en scene is dark, shown by the lack of lighting and lack of colour in the costumes, not seeing the hooded figures face makes him ominous and doesn't give us much to go on about his intentions with the woman, who's the brightest coloured character on screen as her dress is white and her blonde hair would contrast with the black surrounding her, suggesting her innocence and her hope when Jake stumbled upon the scene. When the hooded man stepped forward he cut off her direct light which could depict when he speaks his only line she then looses all of the hope she had left). The hooded man speaks the words"What took you so long?" and then we switch to a close up on Jake's face where his panicked facial expression turns into a malicious smile. There would then be a fade into black and this would be the end of the video. The hope of those last scenes to change the audiences whole perception of Jake, and Myself trying to prove that one small action can change the way you look at a character.