Final Plan

By the next meeting the script and the idea had been changed a little bit. We decided to make it look like a soap: over dramatised, over played, full of cliches. The film would end with a guy watching the soap at his home on a couch from a TV, then turning it off and going away. That decision ruled out the library as a location, because there are not many soaps where the action is happening in a library. It also added a location – the home.

As we agreed to make it look like a soap I quickly started watching bits of soaps I know: The Bold and The Beautiful, Home and Away, Neighbours and EastEnders. I was paying the most attention to locations where young people meet. The director came up with an idea to use a bar and everyone liked the it. In Home and Away the gathering places also include a diner.


Home and Away:

EastEnders:

Neighbours:

When it came to planning the looks of the characters I took the character profiles to help me out.

Looks in the bar:

Cortana: As Cortana is modest and hard-working, but she doesn’t really want to be noticed because she feels insecure about her scar, I want her to wear a grey t-shirt, not much make-up nor jewellery. As she is working in the bar she is wearing black pants and shoes as well as a black apron. For the scar to be noticeable and because she is working she is wearing a ponytail but as she wants to hide the scar, she has some hair fallen on her face. She is also wearing black round glasses for her to look similar to Harry Potter. She is holding a notepad, a pen and a towel for cleaning tables.

Damon: As Damon is very confident, reckless and likes to have a good time he is our typical bad boy who has a good heart. I want him to wear a colourful or light T-shirt to show that he wants to stand out and is confident. He is also wearing a dark leather jacket that is often connected to a bad boy image, motorbikes, speeding and reckless behaviour. In our soap it’s also connected to the accident he and Cortana were in. In addition he is wearing a big noticeable watch that also shows his confidence and desire to be noticed.

Looks in the flashback:

Cortana: I want Cortana to look happy and confident, full of joy and potential. I am imagining her in colourful girly clothes. Maybe a skirt or a dress, shoes, sunglasses and UNI papers in her hand, loose hair and a hat, she is also wearing sunglasses.

Damon: As he has not changed since the accident I want him to wear similar clothes to what he is wearing after the accident. He is definitely wearing his wrist watch. I am thinking of a light T-shirt, dark pants and a dark leather jacket or bomber jacket. He is also wearing a hat, because we are going to use a body double when filming Damon driving the car.

Cortana right after the crash: After the crash she has her hat and glasses fallen off, the papers and her phone on the ground, her arms wide open and the body looks like posed. She has a cut on her face, where the scar will be later, and blood tripping down her cheeks.

 

Location 1:

Bar: As we agreed on using a bar as our main location we had to find one and the easiest was to ask from Bar Latitude. First I imagined Cortana behind the bar and Damon coming in for a drink – a common situation in soaps where a girl working in a bar is listening to a guy tell her his problems behind a bottle of beer. Unfortunately we were not given the permission to film behind the bar so we had to think of something else. As in many soaps students go to a local diner to have lunch after school or just meet each other so we could have Damon coming in the bar to have lunch, he would sit down by a table to choose what he likes and Cortana would be cleaning up another table at the same time. They would see each other and as she would go to Damon to take the order they would start the conversation.

After getting the permission to film in Bar Latitude I went there to take some pictures and see which area of the bar to use for filming. I liked two corners of the bar. My favourite one has two different walls. One wall is black and there is a white couch, which would be a dark background for Damon, the white couch would make him pop out though. The other wall is white and has a colourful picture on it, there’s also colourful chairs and a window just next to it making it very light: that would be a happy and light background for Cortana making her pop out with her dull clothes.

Car: When we film Damon driving inside the car I was thinking of colourful furry dices hanging on the mirror to really enhance his personality. I also imagine him listening to loud music and having a phone in his hand on which he is wearing his big watch.

Home: I imagine a couch and a TV. A guy on the couch wearing sweatpants and a hoodie, half of his stomach out and flip-flops on. He is holding a remote in his one hand and a bowl of pop-corn in the other. There is pop-corn on his stomach, on the couch and on the floor. The room is dark, only the TV is showing some light on his body.