Teenage Girls Research.

s is a link from a blog post that another member of my group ( Chantelle ) We worked together to create this post, as we feel that we need to concentrate a lot on creating a really interesting, and typical teenage girl to play our main character.


  http://chantellemedia-a2.blogspot.com/2009/09/teenage-girls.html


We are using Kirsty, another member of the group to play the main character Carly, this is because we feel she had the most confidence, and we felt she would be able to play Carly perfectly. 

Kirstys Costume Power Point

Planning Production

These are photos of some of the shots/settings we are planning on using for filming.

The top photo ( girl sat against the wall) is my favourite, and is the shot we will be using for the opening scene. The other scenery ones are the places that we felt looked like they suited the atmosphere we want, scruffy, rough and poor.

Drug Research

In our film the main character has a drug addiction to heroin, actually tea and crushed brown sugar, because obviously we couldn't use real drugs.
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 We decided to find out the usual effects this drug has on the body and just some general information on it.
Effects:

• Heroin slows down body functioning and substantially reduces physical and psychological pain.
• Most users get a rush or buzz a few minutes after taking it.
• A small dose of heroin gives the user a feeling of warmth and well-being.
• Bigger doses can make the user sleepy and very relaxed.
• The first dose of heroin can bring about dizziness and vomiting.

Purity: A user has no way of knowing what their heroin is mixed with. Recent tests have shown it can contain nutmeg, brick dust, and ground-up gravel but it’s more commonly mixed with sugar, starch, powdered milk, or quinine.

Risks: Deaths from overdoses occur. But the risk increases after a period off the drug because the body's tolerance for the drug goes down.
If this drug is taken with alcohol or any other drugs it increases the chances of overdosing.

 Injecting heroin can do nasty damage to your veins and has been known to lead to gangrene (death and decay of body tissue, usually a digit or a limb) and tissue infections.

http://www.talktofrank.com/drugs.aspx?id=186

Several films from different genres have shown depictions drug taking scenes with varying levels of seriousness. This scene tends to appear more often in films that feature gangster lifestyles (layer cake, snatch, etc) or social realism films (trainspotting, kidulthood, etc).

Casino Royale:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yNntwSjOwo&feature=player_embedded#at=76

In Casino Royale there is a scene very similar to a drug scene where James Bond is poisoned. The scene shows him walking in a brightly lit room and the camera is very shaky. The exaggeration of the lighting is obviously a side effect of the drug as is the shakiness of the camera. The shakiness of the camera is also done to show the effects the drug have had on the body e.g loss of mobility and co-ordination skills.




Training Day:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqJyNw8tGE0&feature=player_embedded#

In this scene from Training Day, it shows one character after smoking some marijuana. The scene is slowed down after and the colours slightly distorted. The sound has been altered and sounds slightly more echoey than it was before.

Trainspotting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgeDh1WCyeM&feature=player_embedded#

Probably the best known out of all of the examples for it's drug related storyline. The scene above shows a 'bad trip.' The character looks extremely anxious and restless and also sweaty. The scene shows no obvious special effects as this scene shows 'coming down' from a drug rush however the colours are very dim and grey.




Sugarhouse:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka0gdqGFT2g&feature=related

This scene from independent film Sugarhouse only shows a little bit of drug use. The character using the drugs knows that it's wrong and turns the religious statue away from him. There aren't many special effects to show the affects on the body but the character taking the drugs starts dancing and acting as if he completely at ease. Out of all the examples this is the only one that doesn't make drug use look extremely negative

Plot Outline

The short film follows a day in the life of our main character, she is a girl who has lost her way in life because of the strong influence of her boyfriend.

We see the effects of how easily she has been influenced, and how denial has made her lose her way through the representation of the post cards being her inner thoughts.

We see through the film how her standards lower and her self respect is lost due to her addictions, and her denial which is a common trait within those who have addictions.

Character : Main Girl= Carly
Boy one = Tom
Boy two= Ryan

Carly gets up she walks through her house,we see her mother slumped in a chair she looks as though she has been sleeping there all night, next to her is lots of empty beer cans and a half smoked ciggarette in the ashtray next to her, the woman in the chair is all bruised and looks as though she has been beaten up.
We see Carly look at a picture from when she was younger , in the picture Carly and her mother look happy their is not a man in the picture, this represents the common family structure of one parent family's, in which it is usually the mother figure who brings up the children which is typical to thr film. The lack of the father figure is significant to Carly's relationship with men during the film. The lack of the father figure could be an underlying reason in which the men /boys Carly has got involved with has treated her in this way and Which in turn leads to her addiction which is due to the vulnerability of Carly.
We follow Carly walking to the shops this is sped up, we see her walk into the shop and come back out of the shop with a plastic bag with cans of alcohol in it.
It cuts to a shot of a brick wall we see the camera pan slowly to the left until Carly comes into the shot. We see lots of empty cans littered around her , Carly gets up and staggers about in the place where she has just sat we see two post cards the first just says the word "DRUNK" the next post card says the phrase "I CAN GIVE UP IF I WANT TO".
The shot fades to black and we see Carly standing at the gate of a house we see her walk down the garden path and knock on the door we see boy 1 answer the door and Carly goes into the house with him. behind the boy stood in the corridor, we see a clock that says three o clock. the door shuts in the camera and then reopens we see her come out of the house, the boy is kissing her neck sleazily, her expression on her face looks upset and uncomfortable. Boy 1 only has only has a pair of trackies on, his hair is all messy and he lights up a cigarette in his mouth before getting out a wad of cash before we see a close up of the exchange of cash in their hands. this whole scene has a dark tint to it to give the impression of danger within the scene that is happening. The boy slams the door in Carlys face before we see her walk back up the garden path as she walks up the garden we see her get her phone out of her bag it cuts to a close up of the phone screen which says seven missed calls from Ryan. Behind where she is walking the second secret drops with the word "CHEAT".

we see Carly walking along the street, this is all speed up the speed then slows down into slow motion , here we see Carly walk past a boy he looks very shady and is smoking we then cut to an extreme close up of their hands here we see the exchange of a packet of drugs, the speed of the scene then speeds up again before cutting to the next scene.

we see Carly burst into a toilet cubicle we see her take the drugs, the shot then fades to black before we see a ariel view of Carly lead on the , in the mirror we can see a reflection of boy two on the mirror written in lipstick is the penultimate secret "YOU MADE ME LIKE THIS".

The scene then cuts to the scene which is representative of Carly's drug induced haze this scene is all distorted to give a feeling that the viewer a feeling that we are in the drug induced dream.

We see Carly running through a field we are going to put a ghosting effect on this to emphasis the haziness of is the scene were seeing real life or a dream.  Carly is holding a red balloon attached to the balloon is a white piece of paper which is the final secret with the words "but i still love you " wrote on. Carly gets to the middle of the field and lets go of the balloon the camera then tilts with the balloon until it finally goes out of view.

In this last scene the song I have chosen as the sound track is the song The dogs days by Florence and the machine as the words are very fitting to the scene it also create tension to whether Carly has actually died or not. However it may not be possible to use this track therefore I am going to have to apply for permission in order to use the track.

In this last scene the red balloon can represent one of two things it can represent the love for the boy who made her like this has gone away, or the red balloon could represent her life and the letting go of the balloon could in fact represent that her death. This is why the distorted effects of this scene are important as it is done in order to leave the audience leaving not knowing if she has died or not.