‘The Little Book of Loneliness’

Synopsis

Fred, a 17 year old boy, feels lonelier and even more lost than ever. To jot down his memories, thoughts and feelings, he begins to write an open diary as a way of coping with life. Every day he walks to his favourite spot on the beach and writes whilst sitting on the sea wall. One day, on his way back home, he leaves the book behind on the pathway. This story shows his journey through finding his prized possession.

Statement of Intent

I intend to produce two posters to advertise my film through including signifiers that link to the narrative I will create and introduce the central concepts, ideas and characters without explicitly revealing the details of the plot. My first poster will include the dominant signifier of a notebook, as the notebook is the central plot device in my narrative. I intend to put this image in the centre of the poster, the main focal point as a foreground on a black background. On top of the notebook, I will put the anchorage “He was lost, waiting to be found” , with the words ‘lost’ and ‘found’ in bold.

In my second poster, I will include a picture of a bench in front of a bush. On the bench, the male protagonist will be sat, writing in the diary with a rucksack next to him. On the wooden slats of the bench, I will edit in the title of the film “The Little Book of Loneliness” in a large font size. As well as this, I will put the text: ‘Featuring the music of Harry Styles’ as a way of advertising the link the film has to the artist through the use of his music. I will take inspiration from film posters for ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ (2014) and ‘Titanic’ (1997) as their narratives have similarities to mine. I will use their designs as a style model to ensure I have a structure I can loosely replicate and know which images I need to take.

I intend to create two different film sequences that would be featured in my short film. They would provide insight for my audience and give a teaser into how the whole film would look visually, how it would be edited and also how it would sound. My first sequence would introduce the setting, the main character and include the ‘exposition’ of the linear, chronological narrative structure. I intend to create a ‘morning routine’ montage which will be fast paced through incorporating sharp cuts between shots. This part will include different shots such as an alarm going off, a pan of a sunrise, a toaster and a kettle as a way of leading the audience into the storyline and introducing the character. I will also introduce the key signifier of the film; the main character’s notebook, to set up the object’s importance in the plot line. For audio, I will use a continuous background sound of a ‘nature soundscape’ which will include bird song and wind noises to link to the way in which my story has a link to nature through the character going outside each day. I will also include a recording of the main characters voice, reading the contents of his notebook, as an overlay, whilst a shot of him writing in the book is on screen.

I intend for the second sequence to document the main character’s daily walk to the beach where he writes in his notebook and jots down his thoughts and feelings. I aim to start by including a establishing, long shot of the beach landscape which slowly focuses into the character by using a series of medium shots of him walking, closeups of his shoes and an extreme close up of him writing in his notebook. To link back to the brief of including a link to a famous music star, I intend to include the song “Fine Line” by Harry Styles for audio as it creates an atmospheric tone. The climax of my film would occur in this sequence; when the character unknowingly leaves his notebook behind on the path.

I intend to create a website that provides information on the content of the film, about the brand identity and further information about the cast, crew and production elements. I aim to create 4 website pages; a ’home’, an ‘about’ page, a ‘production’ page and also a page called ‘take a look’ which will allow the audience to see my film sequences.

I imagine that my cross media production would be produced by a small, independent company which is owned by a large conglomerate such as ‘Warner Bros’. The two posters would be created for distribution on a streaming platform eg. ‘Netflix’. The production would project to ‘The Explorer’ audience who can connect to the main characters journey to discovery and also ‘The Mainstreamer’ who can connect to the cathartic aspects of the narrative.