Advanced Portfolio Planning Ideas - Group

We have discussed ideas about our film idea and are focusing on the theme of Domestic Violence. We talked about going for teenage domestic violence rather than in adults as it will be harder for us to act as adults rather than acting our own age.

We have discussed about the story and plot and are coming up with a lot of ideas. We've had the idea of a possessive girlfriend, who is constantly in touch with her boyfriend. She texts him, he doesn't reply then she rings him repeatedly. The audience then sympathises with her as we think he is the stereotypical man and she is just the clingy girlfriend.

Our film will comply to a hybridity of social realist, romance (all for the wrong reasons). We give the audience the impression of a romance  and a slight bit of Thriller as Sam is the protagonist and Amy is the antagonist. We will fool the audience into thinking it is a romance by initially conforming to Todorov's narrative. The equilibrium is where he is at the pub with his friends, then the disruption is when she calls him and appears to spoil his evening. However, we soon find out it does not conform to this narrative through the way it is non-linear and there is no resolution. The switch in narrative signifies a switch in genre, from romance to conventions of thriller.


Or film will contain a vast representation of social groups including gender and those traditional representations as well as the issues surrounding abuse. We feel that representing these groups through costume and make up as well as props will allow our audience to feel emotion for our characters and to bring awareness of how domestic abuse isn't as simple as people first think.

Other scene ideas

• Flashback scenes with 'trigger' props
• Eating dinner alone at home - flashback to their first date
• Flashback too before the violence
• Flashback to Sam meeting a girl outside college, seeing Laura talk to him and Amy getting jealous. This begins Amy's descent into abuse as she become possesive over Sam.  
• Phone conversation - "Who are you with?"
• Following him home in the car - he hears a radio broadcast about domestic abuse
• A scene with Sam looking at a note from his mum, we begin to see the possesiveness of the characters.

We have a couple of different ideas for the ending.

• One involves him on the phone to a help line which she overhears/sees. We would not elaborate on an ending here to keep the audience guessing what is going to happen.
• She confronts him one last time resulting in disastrous consequences - final shot of Sam lying on the floor - again, keeps the audience wondering what has happened.
• He kills himself
• He stands up for himself and she realises the consequences of her actions.
• Another idea that we had that would make the plot complex is that the whole story up until the end is a flashback. We have the shot where he rings a helpline, then Amy comes in from behind. He hears her, then he hangs up the phone and the beep from the dial turns into the beep of someones heart in a hospital. We then cut to a shot, in present time where Sam is in a hospital bed. The audience are left questioning what happened, and contemplating the severity of domestic abuse.