After brainstorming a list of moral dilemmas that more people could relate to. I came up with a moral dilemma of a girl who knows that her friend is being cheated on by her boyfriend. In situation, the dilemma is that is that if the protagonist tells her friend she is being cheated on, she will be sad and probably be angry because she gave the bad news, and if she dosn’t know, she will be cheated on again.
Characters:
There will be a full character biography available in my sketchbook.
- Riley- The protagonist of the story, she is the person who is aware of the boyfriend cheating on her friend.
- Chelsea- She is Riley’s best friend, she is oblivious and happy with life.
- Kyle- He is the one who is doing all of the cheating, he is a deceitful character.
Story:
Key: Flashbacks: [Italic Font] Present: Normal Font
Riley goes to Chelsea’s house for a casual meet-up. After some small talk(here I will use triangular filming), Riley looks at a photograph of them all at a party.
[This causes a flashback for Riley, in this section I will use lighting techniques such as backlighting and incidental lighting, a shot inspired by the hole in the wall shot from “Psycho”. The first flashback will just show riley looking through a semi open door and then a backlit shot of Kyle kissing this woman who we can only see a silhouette of. The flashbacks will be fast paced to create tension.]
After Riley snaps out of the flashback, Chelsea is talking about how well the relationship is going. Slow creep in camera movement towards Riley as sounds start to become more intensified. Cutaway shots to things making a sound, poster/painting now looks menacing because the sounds are making a dark atmosphere.
As the sounds become more intense, Chelsea’s voice starts to become distorted.
[The other route of this flashback could be that, because of the lighting in the room, Riley does not notice that it is not Chelsea who he is kissing. She calls for Chelsea and Kyle quickly runs out of the room and closes the door. Riley is confused and asks, what is wrong with Chelsea. Kyle looks nervous and then an unknown girl opens the door. Riley looks disgusted and runs away from Kyle as he tries to call her back to explain. Chelsea walks up to Kyle and asks what is wrong with her.]
The flashback ends with a door slam which brings Riley back to reality. Kyle walks out of a room and tells Chelsea that he is going out for the night and will be staying in his friends house. Chelsea asks “aren’t you going to say hello to Riley?”. Kyle greets her awkwardly and says he has to go and catch the bus.
All of the sounds start to get intense again all at once. Very chaotic. The kettle boils,Clock ticking.
It ends in the peak of the chaos.
Thoughts about this idea:
- Although this narrative has a pretty straight-forward plot and message. Making it so it has a non-linear structure can make the topic seem more exiting.
- I will be able to progress on numerous of my single-camera drama skills. Such as; Sound design, Lighting, and Editing. Which were the main skills I wanted to develop from the start of this FMP.
- I don’ think I will use this version of the narrative because I would like to use more flashbacks and keep the ambiguity about what the moral dilemma is until the end.
Thomas Neild's FMP Blog 