STORY+NARRATIVE: What is the narrative of your film? And how will you tell it?
In three words: Breaking social norms.
In a sentence: Rebelling against the societal beauty ideals and expectations of women by breaking stereotypes and ‘finding oneself’- essentially becoming comfortable with one’s identity.
In more detail: Firstly, I want to place emphasis on the audio we’re using. We aim to layer our video with a reading of Lewis Carroll’s: “The Jabberwocky”. The poem itself is filled with nonsense words and a fictional beast. For our film, the mythical beast is a representation of the fictitious and fabricated stereotypes for men and women that have been created by society. In the poem, the father figure warns his son against this beastly Jabberwocky, emphasising the danger of encountering and destroying it. With this knowledge, the son rebels and triumphs anyway by killing the beast. We want to use this to show how our subject has been being warned about rebelling against the beauty ideals and norms of society.
To show how our subject has been made ‘aware’, we are going to open their eyes to the ‘propaganda’ surrounding them. To achieve this, we’re planning to shoot a ‘scene’ where our subjects eye are being forced open, either by multiple hands or by specific props. I’m more confident that opening their eyes using hands is a more successful idea as the owner-less hands can represent people and powers within society forcing the subject to be ‘brain-washed’ and influenced by what they are watching.I want the focus of this scene to be on the eyes of the subject, possibly filmed in dim lighting. I aim to collage together different ‘propaganda’ (from TV, Instagram, Social media, Magazines etc) and film the reflection of this in the eye of the subject.
To show our subject’s rebellion against typical beauty ideals, we’re incorporating the use of costume and props to alter their physical appearance. Combining both male and female outfits or wearing predominantly ‘masculine’ clothing to show the absurdity of assigning items of clothing with a gender. Additionally, props we may include would be boxing gloves and wraps as it’s not a typically feminine sport.
AUDIENCE: Who is it for?
We’re aiming our film towards the younger generation. As this generation is growing up, they are also figuring out their own identity and how they define themselves. We’re hoping to reach out to this group and change the way they view other people or themselves. By showing how easily social norms can be deconstructed, we hope to make our audience more open to the possibility of expressing themselves in a way that isn’t considered ‘normal’ by society.
CONTEXT: Who is your inspiration?
A lot of inspiration for this film is derived from the Dada movement and from contemporary photographer, Shannon O’Donnell. O’Donnell’s view on gender is relevant to our piece. She argues that the strict gender binary is a social construct and she attempts to show this in her film ‘That’s not the way the river flows’.
https://www.shannonodonnell.co.uk/a-short-film-tntwtrf
STORYBOARD: draft
