Pre-production - Meeting With Talya

After our last team meeting we assigned tasks to each person, mine was to write the suicide note. we decided to start with this as it will form the foundation for our short film. The rest of the Action that will happen is formed around this therefore it made sense to start here and build everything else around it. I decided that to ensure that we were all on the same page, as I made progress with the note I would meet with each member of the group and to also include any ideas they had. Today I met with Talya and we found that there were some continuity flaws within our idea so we made a few changes which we will present to the rest of the group on Monday to see if they are in agreement.

• The first thing we found was that it may be difficult to achieve flashbacks to specific events within her life because everything will be filmed on campus it will be difficult to replicate scenes of the home with family members and to effectively display the contrast in such a way that audience could follow.Solution: 
• It may be an idea to just show her daily routine at university.
• However upon further reflection we came up with the idea that if we use Abigail’s kitchen for the family scene which looks a lot more like a family home rather than student accommodation, then in post-production include the voices of family members talking to make it feel like she is at home rather than at university.
  
  
• We also realised that the space on the desk might be a bit difficult to film on because its not very big.
  Solution:
• The subject could be writing the letter on her bed instead.
  
  
• Anther location we thought we may have difficulties filming in is the ledge, the first reason is because of safety, it also does not really allow the friend to save the subject in the way that we had planned.Solution:
•  We felt that a completely different suicide method would be best, the easiest method to replicate would be carbon monoxide poisoning.
  
  
• We also though that we should have some kind of climax whilst she narrates her story just to make it a bit more interesting, for example when she is writing she should cross things out through frustration, the sound of this can be amplified and added in post production. There could also be two slow paced flash backs and the third fast with sound effects of her heart beating and her taking deep breaths, possibly even crying. at the end the frames can cut at a fast rate cutting between the flashbacks. we would also make to make it clear that she is flashing back by changing the gradient of the shot.

Solution:

• After the final flashback we should have an extreme close up of her eyes as she cries as a transition from her writing the note in the bedroom to her being in the car about to gas herself. we would achieve the transition by zooming out of her eyes and have her appear in the new location. this may be a bit ambitious however if we ensure that the subject is in the same place in the frame as we zoom out in the new location it can be achieved. failing this we could have the subject blink in one frame and the next she is in the new location.
• In terms of continuity, during one of the flashbacks the subjects phone could either ring or she could get a message from the friend who saves her this will have two purposes. The first will be to draw her out of the flow her her writing and flashback to make it clear to the audience that her being in her room writing the note is present day and that everything else are just accounts of past events. the second purpose is to introduce the person who saves her at the end so it is clear that the hero is someone she knows. 

Where do we go from here?

• Talya is going to try and find a sound track, something mellow but with a climax for the ending
• We would pitch our new ideas to the rest of the group in the next meeting
• I would finish the note ready to present to everyone so I can write the rest of the script ensuring that it sounds like she has no constraints or reservations about her emotions because she is not planning for the future and to make it so the audience can make their own inference about the suicide note rather than her explicitly say so.
• We would need to change the mode of transport to car/walk in the character profile