Initial Synopsis Ideas

Causality Idea

Mark is the average everyday teenager making all the choices that are made in his life. One day a life changing choice arises for that character with the option of two possible outcomes taking place. One side you have Mark deciding to go to a particular festival and on the other hand he chooses not to. split screen of the two show the different outcomes and the paths they take which results in a tragic event for one, and the other watching the problem happening from a distance.

Audience and purpose - The audience for this short film would be aimed for the 15+ age range and for those that face day to day decisions like the character would in the short film, with the purpose to experiment with the idea of causality, which could intern could be made into a feature film.

Upon review we realised that this idea would not work for a couple of practical reasons. being able to assemble people to a festival or even create a tragic event would not be in our power as to create without a budget. Moreover, we felt there was no depth to this synopsis and we couldn't take it anywhere, and if we could make it would be a bit cheesy as its been done many times before.

A Comedic Voiceover

Mark is a slacker that never does work, but is deluded into thinking that he does, and is working hard enough for his grades and indeed his future. As he realises how close to the deadline for exams he is, he begins to rush his revision and run through work, for which he should have been doing all year. He sits his exams and comes out very pessimistic as to how he had performed, and starts to worry as to whether he has done enough to get through the year and proceed to university. His luck changes with his results when he sees that they are good enough grades to get into university. Mark is very dismissive of his work at first but his attitude changes when he sees what happens to other students that failed, which motivates him into getting work done.

Audience and purpose - This would be aimed at students from the GCSE to A-level range because of the general theme of the short film idea, with the purpose of motivating that age group to focus on work if they want to get anywhere in life.

With this idea we decided to go ahead with, we changed a lot of the events that happens in the synopsis but kept the same basic premise and moral. instead of making the main character dismissive of his work, we decided to make him cocky, which is the reason he doesn't work. the comedy voice over is made by the cockiness of Marks character when we introduced another character in the shape of Marks head of year that tries to give mark a reality check but fails. we decided to go with this synopsis by make some changes to enhance the creativity, not only due to its practicality, but by introducing the idea of the character being able to talk to himself in the same shot, via split-screen.