Synopsis Draft 1 and Discussion Notes

The Short opens in a classroom at the end of a school day, with the main ‘metalhead’ character sitting as his desk, twiddling his pen, watching the clock run down the minutes. Then as the bell rings he picks up his stuff and quickly shuffles out of the room on his own, leaving the rest of the class to chat and casually walk out.

It then cuts to a different scene of a sixth form common room, where the main character is sat at a computer with headphones over his ears doing his work. Then his isolation is shown by him being alone at a computer, when the rest of the sixth form are in their own social groups. Suddenly he is hit by a flying object, and a barrage of laughter, so he just packs up his stuff and leaves, and walks home.

When at home he walks up to his room and throws his stuff down to the floor. He then walks past a mirror but stops and turns to look at himself. He starts pulling his clothes whilst looking uneasy and torn. Then he opens the wardrobe and pulls out the supposedly ‘normal’ clothes that he owns. After putting on the clothes he turns and looks in the mirror again. Then he screams and changes back in to his previous outfit and looks in the mirror and smiles.

For the rest of the day he smiles, through dinner, television, school work and when he goes to sleep.

Then it opens with the same opening scene but the next day, and as he gets up to go home he hears the jibes and jeering of the supposedly ‘normal’ group, he slowly turns and says; ‘I am what, i am’, turns, and walks out of the room smiling and then it ends.

Discussion Notes

The main point that came up in our discussion was the issue of “literary” style versus WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get. It runs through the description, it’s more novel style than film style writing. Take for example; ‘At the end of the school day’. We can’t see this is the frame. So many parts need to be removed from this and changed or edited to make this seem more like a description of a film.

Also we spoke about how i could be more descriptive of the actual settings around, which goes along with the WYSIWYG point made earlier because at the moment it’s too basic.

Another major point that was brought up during the discussion was the fact that the story itself is too tame and doesn’t really have a peaking point for the dilemma part of the story. Which in turn makes the predicament and conflict parts of the synopsis weak too. Overall the whole synopsis for now is not following The Character and the Problem questions set out by Milgrom such as; Who is the main character? What is their problem? How will the audience recognise the problem? Are the stakes high enough? Am I telling the story from the best point of view? Which in turn makes it worse for the audience because; 'The audience must be clear from the outset who the film is about and they won’t be if you aren’t.'