Friday, 25 February 2011

the characters

The two main characters in our film opening are both the German girl and the English boy.


Frieda (the German girl)



The role of the German girl in our film opening is being played by Nora Böttcher. We decided to give her the name "Frieda" as it is a typical German name and easy to keep in mind.
Frieda is an exchange student in an English school; she spends a year in Great Britain and has therefore started to keep a diary which she takes everywhere. When she gets off the bus on her way to school, she drops and loses it due to the amount of people at the bus stop.



Liam (the English boy)


The role of the English boy in our film opening is being played by Andre Jenkins; his character's name is Liam.
Liam finds Frieda's diary when he gets on the bus and tries to give it her back, but since the bus stop is quite busy and Frieda is already too far gone into another direction, he keeps it. He then decides to translate the diary, which is written in German, in order to find the girl who owns it.

Sunday, 20 February 2011

the script

During the last couple of days we developed a script for our film opening which is based on the ideas we've collected in the past media lessons.




Scene 1
girl gets ready; separated shots of eyes, mouth, takes the jacket, the bag, leaves the house, goes to the bus, takes the bus; the face is never shown, only small parts

Scene 2
boy gets off the bus, she gets on; she drops the diary, he picks it up and the doors close; he only sees the back of the girl before the bus leaves and she is gone; he flicks through the diary, puts the diary in his bag, meets a friend

Friend:
"How are you doing?"
Boy:
"Fine, let's go."

Scene 3
girl sits in the common room before the lesson starts, talks to a friend on the phone in German (English subtitles); a boy sits on the other side of the room looking at her

Girl:
"Hey sweetie! You can’t believe what I go through at the moment! I’m in the common room at the moment waiting for the school bell to ring to start the lesson. I really hate boys, but they all seem to think that they fancy me! It’s unbelievable! You know, there is especially this one guy, on the opposite side of the room. He stares at me all the time!"
(German: "Hey Süße! Du glaubst nicht, was ich gerade durchmache! Ich bin im Moment im Gemeinschaftsraum und warte auf die Schulklingel, dass der Unterricht anfängt. Ich hasse Jungs, aber die scheinen alle zu glauben, ich würde auf die stehen! Das ist unglaublich! Da ist vor allem dieser eine Typ, weißt du, auf der anderen Seite vom Raum. Der starrt mich die ganze Zeit an!")

girl looks at the boy, he gives her a wink

Girl:
"Eww! He just winked at me! Why are boys always like that? I’m so glad girls are different! ... Alright princess, I have to go now. I miss you already! ... Love you, too! Bye ...bye bye!" (air kisses)
(German: "Ihh! Er hat mir gerade zugezwinkert! Warum sind Jungs immer so? Ich bin so froh, dass wir Mädels nicht so sind. Ok Prinzesschen, ich muss jetzt gehen. Ich vermisse dich jetzt schon! ... Ich liebe dich auch! Tschau, tschau tschau!")

boy sees it and reacts but she ignores him


Scene 4
boy in lesson (clock keeps ticking really fast); school bell rings, kids leave school, everything is recorded in fast motion with a fixed camera angle of a corridor

Scene 4
boy sits in empty library, surrounded by books, German-English dictionary, the diary; play with words for comedy effect; girl's voice in the background reading out the diary extract

Diary:
"In zwei Tagen geht mein grosses Abenteuer los. Ich habe ziemliche Angst davor, ich glaube, mein Englisch ist unter aller Sau."

boy tries to translate it; writes down words, looks in the dictionaries; writes his translation

His translation:
"In two days starts my big adventure. I am really scared, I think my English is under all pig."

camera on his face - enquiring, confused face

Boy:
"This doesn’t make sense at all!"

he crosses out his written sentences, tears his hair, looks straight in the camera; despaired view

Boy:
"I just can’t do it! But I need to! I want to know who she is! I need to!"

Voice in the background:
"I am really sorry, but I have to close now. You can come back tomorrow if you want to."

Scene 5
boy leaves school (same camera angle as the fast motion), holds diary in his hands; gets a phone callfrom a friend, we just see him answering the phone; split screen

Friend:
"Hey mate, how are you doing? We are having a welcome party for our new foreign students this year. Would you like to come?"

Boy:
"What country do they come from?"

Friend:
"Germany, why? Are you coming or not?"

Boy:
"Alright mate, see you later."



boy is happy; struggles, falls and drops diary; camera on diary; credits coming up

Saturday, 5 February 2011

settings

During our last media lesson Faraz, Nora and I went through the Pendeford school to look for possible setting where our film opening could be taking place.