portfolio project week 4 (2/28-3/6) post #2

Official Shooting Days!! + Updates

Filming will officially start this Saturday & Sunday (3/12-3/13) at Grace's house!!! We definitely won't finish by then, but those are our only two mutually available days so I guess we'll take it step by step. Anyways, here's what we have so far:

Characters

Patti (Grace's mom (Laura)): Psychologist in her mid-50s struggling to properly grieve the suicide of her teen daughter, Meredith. She became a psychologist because she feels that it was her fault that she couldn't get proper help for Meredith and she wants to help others to ease her conscience. However, she sees Meredith wherever she goes because the guilt eats away at her.

Meredith (me): Patti's dead teen daughter. Committed suicide by drowning herself in a tub, was found by Patti. A vengeful version of her haunts Patti, appearing as the drowned, drenched version of herself. Doesn't speak, just stands nearby menacingly. Appears more as the story goes on, showing the takeover.

Unnamed patient (Grace): There to establish setting. Represents a person with suicidal thoughts who thankfully worked through them and gets better, showing the audience that help is possible. Her face is not shown because she as a person doesn't really matter, it's what she represents. She might be shown later on when she comes back into the room. Not sure yet. I'll talk to Grace.

Storyboard

Rough draft by Grace:

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Tomorrow in class I'll review it and change anything, so I will repost a clearer and maybe updated version tomorrow but I want to show our progress so I'm posting this one.

Revised plot

Grace and I made our own versions of the plot and decided to combine it, so here it is so far:

A psychologist named Patti is haunted by the memory of her dead daughter, Meredith. Meredith committed suicide by drowning. Patti feels it was her fault for not being able to help her, therefore she became a psychologist to help others and atone. The film starts off in Patti's organized and cute office with her staring at her notes, not listening to the patient in front of her, who is unnamed for psychological privacy reasons. The patient's voice is muffled to represent that Patti is zoned out, thinking of something but the audience does not know what yet. Patti the focus is surrounded by happy-looking items such as self-care books, bright colored pictures, and signs that have words such as love and hope. There are also family pictures. The opening credits would be displayed during close shots of the items surrounding Patti. An alarm goes off, signifying that the time is up, and Patti is snapped out of her trance. As the patient is leaving, we see a jump cut of the same room slightly off, a person is in the corner of the screen, and Patti gasps, obviously shaken. The scene goes back to the real room, the patient asks if she is ok, Patti says yes but looks at a photo of her daughter as the patient leaves. Patti looks shaken up and is comforting herself rocking back and forth. The scene goes back to the imagined room. Close-ups are shown as they were prior, but this time with dark, emotional items. As the different shots are shown the ghost person is seen. The noise of a door opening back up is heard as the patient enters the room due to forgetting something, jump cut to the real room. The psychologist is seen trying to calm down but still in panic so fast-paced edits from real to imagined room are shown as the patient asks if Patti is okay. Patti tells the patient not to worry and hopes that the therapy session helped her. The title "Can You Help Me" is shown as the patient leaves. Patti stands up, saying "I'm ok. Everything is ok." She sits down at her desk to organize notes and sees a longer flash of the girl we now know is her daughter. She tries to continue doing her work, but her papers are now soaked. She quickly stands up and walks out of her office, rushing to the bathroom to dry her papers. As she walks down the hallway there is water leading to the bathroom. She bumps into someone who asks if she is ok. She says yes and walks faster. Now she is in the bathroom. She puts the papers under a dryer and goes to the sink to wash her face. She washes her face, but when she looks up her daughter is standing behind her. End.