Script Draft Two

SCENE ONE

INT. Kitchen. Morning

JOHN AND COLIN are eating and getting ready for school in the kitchen, LINDA is already in the kitchen in her nightgown itching her arm. JOHN attemps to speak to his mother as she start's a convo with COLIN. JOHN gets up and leaves for school as his brother COLIN slowly follows.

[PAGE BREAK]

SCENE TWO

EXT. THE HOUSE. MORNING

JOHN walks through COLIN'S friends waiting outside as they mock and tease him he begins his journey. COLIN comes out and shakes his head and laughs with his friends about his brother tentively. They begin there journey to school.

[PAGE BREAK]

SCENE THREE

EXT. OUTSIDE SCHOOL - AFTERNOON

JOHN enters school not paying any attention to anything around him. He bumps into a girl. She looks up and curses him. JOHN see's his brother at the corner of his eye and they go there seperate ways. He stops and begins to think about all the abuse he receives at school. [VO]

[PAGE BREAK]

SCENE FOUR

INT. HOME - AFTERNOON

LINDA picks up a handful of letters, and browses through them until she comes across one that catches her eye labelled NHS. She hears someone come into the house, quickly hiding the letter she shouts out john? But then sees it is her eldest son COLIN, he can see through her eyes that she has something to tell him and ask what’s wrong she sits him down and tells him of the letter she received and how she is in desperate need of a kidney. JOHN then comes home from school, he hears the conversation taking place in the living room and quietly approaches the doorway, he is unheard.

LINDA

(CRYING)

Kidney Transplant

COLIN

(SHOCKED/CONFUSED)

Who Me?

COLIN then storms out of the room heading for the front door, barging JOHN on the way out they lock eyes and stare for a few seconds. LINDA drops into the sofa chair and begins to weep, COLIN then slowly walks in and tries to console mother but she politely brushes him off and instead asks what he wants for dinner. We then see a shot of JOHN's facial expression, he looks determined. 

[PAGE BREAK]

SCENE FIVE.

(THE NEXT DAY)

EXT. UPNEY WALK IN CLINIC – MORNING

JOHN walks in.

[PAGE BREAK]

                               

                               (2 WEEKS LATER)

SCENE SIX 

  

INT. LIVING ROOM. DAY

LINDA is at home watching TV, the phone rings and she goes to pick it up without any interest, After 30 seconds of conversation she drops the phone in excitement. John walks into the living room. Although JOHN was outside the door and heard the whole conversation. LINDA embraces JOHN and tell him she had found a compatable kidney donor.

LINDA

(CRYING TEARS OF JOY)

I wonder who was man enough to do this.

LINDA hurries off to inform family and friends, leaving JOHN to smile to himself.

FADE TO BLACK

Kidney Research Part 2

Kidney problems on Prezi

Script Draft One

SCENE ONE

EXT. OUTSIDE SCHOOL - AFTERNOON

JOHN walking outside of school not paying any attention to anything around him. He bumps into a girl. She looks up and curses him. He stops and he sees his brother COLIN who casually laughs at him and walks past as if they’re strangers. He stops as he begins to think about all the abuse he receives at school.

INT. HOME - AFTERNOON

LINDA picks up a handful of letters, and browses through them until she comes across one that catches her eye labelled NHS. She hears someone come into the house, quickly hiding the letter she shouts out john? But then sees it is her eldest son COLIN, he can see through her eyes that she has something to tell him and ask what’s wrong she sits him down and tells him of the letter she received and how she is in desperate need of a kidney.

JOHN then comes home from school, he hears the conversation taking place in the living room and quietly approaches the doorway, he is unheard.

LINDA

(CRYING)

Kidney Transplant

COLIN

(SHOCKED/CONFUSED)

Who Me?

COLIN then storms out the room heading for the front door, barging JOHN on the way he leaves.

LINDA drops into the sofa chair and begins to weep, COLIN then slowly walks in and tries to console mother but she politely brushes him off and instead asks what he wants for dinner.

 [PAGE BREAK]

SCENE TWO.

(THE NEXT DAY)

EXT. UPNEY WALK IN CLINIC – MORNING

JOHN walks in.

(2 WEEKS LATER)

[PAGE BREAK]

SCENE THREE

INT. LIVING ROOM. DAY

LINDA is at home watching TV, the phone rings and she goes to pick it up without any interest, After 30 seconds of conversation she drops the phone in excitement and calls down JOHN.

INT. JOHNS BEDROOM. DAY

JOHN hears his mother call and casually walks downstairs.

INT. LIVING ROOM. DAY

LINDA embraces JOHN and tell him she had a kidney donor.

LINDA

(CRYING TEARS OF JOY)

I wonder who was man enough to do this.

LINDA hurries off to inform family and friends, leaving JOHN to smile to h mimself.

Kidney News Story Research

CLICK LINK TO SEE RESEARCH


The link above is a piece of research taken from a news story, as we are basing our film on such a sensitive and global topic, we wanted to make sure we had enough facts and figures to make a story look realistic.

Desperate Housewives Kidney Research

This clip directly links to a pivotal moment in our film where the eldest brother Colin refuses to donate a kidney,in Desperate Housewives we see a very similar scenario however the mother refuses to donate a kidney to her daughter. As both scenes were pretty much the same, we began to think of ways in which we can portray this happening through mise en scene, body language, camera shots and sound.

sound.

• Silence was used when the mother was first asked to be a donor to show elements of shock confusion and having nothing to say which we thought was quite necessary especially as our film was a silent movie. However unlike Desperate Housewives who used small pieces of sound to create the comedic aspect of the scene we wanted to take a much more serious approach and therefore used a very sentimental soundtrack. 

mise en scene.

• In the above clip the scene was set in the hospital ward, due to our restrictions even though this would be more realistic limitation to locations meant we couldn't construct this and therefore had to think of other private places where discussions such as this could take place. This where we came up with the home being ideal.
• This also links with costume, we was unable to get hospital clothes such as the robe so therefore began to think of other props such as crutches, tablets and medication which would help emphasize her sickness. 
• Through body language would be the best way to show both characters reaction, in the above clip we could see disappointment and shock from the daughters face after hearing her mother would not be donating a kidney. The same is for the mother who's shock is also clearly reflected from her facial expression. 

camera shots.

• We see close ups to show characters expression to the news they had received.
• We also see a lot of shot reverse shots to displays each characters reaction to another, we is very important when filming these scene as there is a lot of emotion and decisions for the characters to react upon. 

This clip was extremely useful as it was very well related to our story.

Character Profiles

JOHN MC'GINNIGHAM

• 17 Years of age at present
• Attended Lockhard Secondary School & Sixth Form, where he was severely bullied by his peers, robbed  of his money and a victim of being head flushed.
• Nickname was "Twiggy G" based on his appearance.
• 5'7, only 9 stones of weight , was born with ginger hair but lately made his mum dye it because of all the negative attention he received.
• His father abandoned the family at his age of 5 and hasn't heard from him since.
• Has a strong passion for the war because his gran-dad served the country in WW2.
• Doesn't have the best of relationships with his brother.
• A*-B Student despite his abuse in school. 
• 
  

LINDA MC'GINNIGHAM 

• 35 years of age at present
• Had John at the age of 18 and Colin at the age of 16 for "high school sweetheart".
• Suffers from kidney failure.
• Had a very close relationship with father.
• Owns hair-salon.
• Dropped out of school after having two children but was able to get life back on track. 

COLIN MC'GINNIGHAM 

• Eldest brother of John and 1st son of Linda.
• 19 years of age at present.
• Not as smart as John, C grade student.
• 6'1 and 11 stones.
• Despises father who left the family.

Colin is significantly bigger than John to show the contrast in roles and attitudes towards both characters.The fact that the father cowardly walked out on the family due to his lack of responsibility at such a young age is a base to the theme of "Manhood" as instead of stepping up to being father like a man, he walked out and the family.

Treatment Draft Two

John Mc’Giningham is a 21 year old from London, his mother’s name is Linda who owns her own hairdresser’s in Bermondsey. His father Craig abandoned John ,his mother and his brother at a very tender and critical time for the family. Consequently John missed that father figure in the house, throughout his school life he was bullied and tormented about his lack of physicality and self confidence. John was very unpopular and saw school as torture. Even his few friends made fun by calling him ‘Twiggy G’. Even at home he was looked done upon by his older brother Chris the opposite to him and his mother Linda. Suffering from kidney problems since the age of 21 Linda finally recives a letter from the NHS warning that she might need a kidney doner as both kidneys of hers had failed and need to continue having her series of dialysis. She first tells the eldest brother as she feel that him being the 'stongest' character mentally and physical he may be able to consolse her and also agree to check if him and her has the compatible blood type. However shockingly he refuses to hear it and is to scared to allow a chance to see if he could be her doner, instead of asking her younger son who she feels may not be able to handle the news nor help her she decides to face this alone even though John has heard the whole coversation while listening in the corridor. John decides to take this  matter into his own hands and in secret goes to the hospital to check if he does have to blood type to help his mum, succesfully finding out that he does he donates a kidney to his mother. We see her recieving the letter and cries tears of joy, we then see John in the corner smiling. She never finds out that John donated the kindey and he proves to be more of a man than his elder brother. John feels proud of himself and knows that this action has powered up his manhood and because he is physically weak he knows that he is strong minded and also great hearted to do such a big move that his older borther couldnt do for his brother.

5 Movies That Portray Theme Of Manhood

BRAVEHEART - This film contains all of the amenities that men look for in a movie which is why i feel like it relates to our subject manner of 'Manhood'. A significant quote that sums this up is “I know you can fight. But it’s our wits that make us men.” which show the courage and also pride of the male who said this. As well as supporting the broad theme of Manhood, it also linking to one of the topics within Manhood which is war. Even though it is not typical image of war such as films about World War 2 , it is about battle which is normally associated with men as it  contains such emotions such as pride which again is to do with Manhood. We looked at certain parts of this film to give us ideas on how we could portray the theme of war and any creative ways to do this, even though our resources were limited we tried to find small details such as camera shots to see how we could make certain scene more effective. 

BOYZ N DA HOOD - This film showed the theme manhood through gangs, conflict and violence. An element that we did not want to use however through small aspects of the film we thought of ways to reflect manhood in just a different way. While watching the film we saw a brotherhood being portrayed through the characters , we saw how their culture and where the from kept them together while in certain cases also created conflict between other characters. We liked the idea of Brotherhood and therefore thought of including brothers in our narrative, however instead of following typical conventions such as gangs we began to think of a much more sentimental approach. 

BABY BOY - Quite similar to 'Boys N Da Hood' this film contained quite alot of gangs and violence, however i noticed it was more about him becoming a man and the trials and tribulations he went through to achieve this, unlike Boyz N Da Hood there was a much more sentimental message being portrayed through the main character, something very similar to what we wanted to achieve. We noticed that even though there may be violence that doesn't limit us to being able to convert subventions and take a much softer approach. In Baby Boy we liked how his physical appearance contradicted his personality and even though he may of looked like a man , he did not however act like one, this was a very good point that we began to look at in more detail and try and incorporate into our narrative. 

JUNO- Even though the theme manhood isn't very prominent in Juno, we looked at one particular character in detail, that being 'Paul bleakly'. He related to one of the theme of Losing virginity which also relates to Manhood and even more importantly becoming a man having to take huge responsibilities at such a young age. It was also useful to watch as Rites of passages from both character was clearly being portrayed. Another important feature was that of Paul Bleakly's physique he was skinny and looked what others may interpret as weak however he was having to face responsibilities of a man. This was quite influential to us as we wanted to subvert this typical convention of the stronger men being the masculine ones and found Juno as a very helpful resource in ways we could achieve this. 

Treatment Draft One

John Mc’Giningham is a 21 year old from London, his mother’s name is Linda who owns her own hairdresser’s in Bermondsey. His father Craig abandoned John ,his mother and his brother at a very tender and critical time for the family. Consequently John missed that father figure in the house, throughout his school life he was bullied and tormented about his lack of physicality and self confidence. John was very unpopular and saw school as torture. Even his few friends made fun by calling him ‘Twiggy G’. Even ay home he was looked done upon by his older brother Chris the opposite to him and his mother Linda. Although his only sense of pride was his Grandfather who fought in ww2 and died for his country, he always loved the army and everything it stood for. One morning after months of pondering John decided to take a step, to gain his manhood, a journey he needed to embark on by himself to join the army. As he left on his journey he leaves an army leaflet on his bed and doesn’t inform anyone on his anticipated departure. Linda then drops to the floor fearing for her sons life as he goes to represent his country she phones family members to ask if they have been informed but all have been unaware of his decision.  We then see a shot john walking down the road by himself with his bag of army stuff and boots hanging out to show he is ready to serve in the war,

Finalising our story idea.

We chose our first idea for various reasons, The first is that it attracts more of a mass audience as the war globally affects many different countries and families. The characters will trigger emotive reactions from the audience as it covers a sensitive issue and many individuals will see the characters as heroic which would mean alot as it shows we have connected to the audience. The initial practicality of making this film would be quite difficult however it allows us to be creative and effectively show different perspectives of war such as the main characters view, or even the families etc. Whereas with our second idea even though we felt it was original it could also be seen as quite cliche and unrealistic to portray with the limited material we have. We also decided that it may not connect with the audience in the way we wanted to and therefore wont be as good to watch

Feedback on Pitch's.

Pitch 1 
Josh- Strong narrative, got a very good base and open for creativity
Abigail- Good idea, unexpected twist, original story, creative.
Heena- Good narrative, concerned about time management may not be able to fit with narrative
Ms Nair- Simple, quite typical, "steer away from the bullying"


Pitch 2
Sienna - " I like it because of comedy aspect, doesnt sound original, so how would you show in different way"
Josh- " I think it's good, sounds impossible, seems difficult and turning to god may be hard to show.
Abigail- " Too much to fit into a film,man turning into a boy is enough without turning to god"
Ms Nair-" I agree that its different, look into the name of the condition. Finding the actor may be difficult, do research about someone who could be in the film. God thing doesnt really fit it well" Wont be as straight forward and many pratical issues to deal with. 

Extraordinary Pictures

The objective of taking these pictures was to learn how to film and take shots of different objects to make it seems more visually effective, this will benefit our film and also show alot of creativity.

With this picture i placed my camera in vase full of stick and dried flowers so that the whole frame was filled with the nature of the picture, in film this places the audience in the action and also could imply a point of view shot aswell.

War and Manhood Research

War & Manhood Research on Prezi

Pitch and Treatment

Tagline - Size dont make a man.

Pitch - Micheal Ginnigman, 15 years of age and seen as physically weak, often referred to as Twiggy in school he was bullied and picked on by the other students who saw him as target. That was untill he decided to prove his Manhood.

I feel that this pitch/storyline is quite different and allows us to use the four technical areas of camera,light,sound and mis-en-scene creatively in order to portray our film message across. We chose a simple story idea so that it will be possible to execute a realistic and meaning fully story instead of working on something tha maybe noone could relate to. So we decided to go with basic idead that to the potential to be filmed and views effectively.

Well I think this idea is really something I could work with because it’s a creative story line and it’s something I haven’t frequently seen in the film world so we would be bringing some new and talented to the table and this is only going to be a 5 minute opening so we won’t give too much away of the general story. And it’s this treatment has the potential to give us a boost have more to talk about in our evaluation questions because its broken down to be more of a visual piece of work and not really much based on sound. Which means that we going to have to make this visually very good to keep our audience in contact.

On the other hand because this treatment would be hard to show visually even though its a brilliant idea reasoning for this is because the subject matter is manhood and that would be hard to show.  If we don’t have the right person to play the character and represent the manhood progress then we won't have a successful film. 

Tagline - 30 going on 13,MAYBE?

Pitch - Lewis Hilton a man inside a boys body, having to go through life wihtout the natural pride of a man, he faces trials and tribulation that break him deep inside he looks for answers everywhere except the one place whih can provide him the help he needs.


My personal thoughts on this treatment is that its also another bright idea and its something unique our group could work on to produce a great short film from. The whole idea of an adults mentality in a child's body is really common in our world today so its a subject matter we can touch on properly and also do further research on.
There reason why I say this would be a good story is because you could get anyone our age to act it out and it would come out looking good or we could even get some one younger to be the character we had described.
Now things that would be a problem in this case would be how to show forth the whole image of a adults mentality in a child's body without using to much dialogue to give ti all away because visually would make it a more successful film.

Boyz n the Hood (1991)

Boyz n the Hood is a 1991 American hood film written and directed by John Singleton which follows the lives of four young males living in the hood of South Central, Los Angeles. This film has so much to do with Manhood in so many different angles, from becoming a man in a area of such poverty and having to deal with the crimes of DRUGS, GANGS, ETC . .  

The most important theme is the benefit of a strong father figure on young black males. Of Tré, Ricky, and Doughboy, only Tré's father is present in his everyday life (Ricky and Doughboy, though brothers, have different fathers). He leads a very different life than his two friends because of his father's guidance. His decisions, especially not to partake in the revenge of Ricky's death, happen because of the morals instilled in him. I chose this clip because it shows the effect the gangs in their area has had on them and how it helped them become a MAN. The final scene plays, showing Doughboy crossing the road pouring out the remaining malt liquor from his bottle as a sign of respect for his dead brother, and then disappears on screen. It gives an impression that the War has stopped and an implication of the old boy going and the Man he has become as his body dissapears on screen. 

Painting Relating To Subject Matter

DALI -Geopoliticus Child 


I feel like this picture relates to our subject matter because it shows a very strong image of rebirth and the egg is such a powerful symbol from this as we are all born from an egg while in our mothers womb. Our subject matter is MANHOOD and i feel that through this picture is gives the impression of the growth from a Boy to a Man. The person breaking through the egg, looks quite manly especially through his body frame being quite muscular and defined. It also relates to our subject matter as it could also mean a new beginning and fresh start and portray the start of becoming a man or breaking through and showing us the man he has become.