Any ideas that were rejected and why

Ideas that were reject and why 

• Many ideas floated between Jacob, Oscar and I about what type of short film we were going to produce. Initially we wanted ideas that were inspired by other films that we had seen, for example: Whiplash - a film about a passionate drummer who aspires to be at the top of his music ability. Our idea was similar to this and we wanted to show the progression of a talented young drummer grow with confidence who also aspires to be at the top of his game. We planned to show his confidence grow through the use of shots like ECPU's and character development. This was probably our first idea though so i feel as if we may have gotten carried away with making it too similar to Whiplash itself. 

• However this led us to our next idea about what short film we decided to do which would be the story of a boy who has some form of mental disorder, for example OCD. We thought that we could show the extreme troubles he faced by being reclusive in his own bedroom. We decided that the use of props would be very important in this short film as we would have needed props which created an iconographic meaning. We would have made the room look very clean and particular and the props we chose, for example neat book shelves, cleaning products, neat rows of pencils, would have built up a good image for the audience about the boy's disorder. 
• We combined the Whiplash idea with this one and decided that perhaps he would be given an instrument (guitar) from his parents and although initially he decides to dismiss the idea of playing it, he finally picks it up one day which helps him grow with confidence. This guitar allows him to slowly forget about his OCD and it gives him the confidence to come out of his room and play for his family and friends. Although this idea was good too as it combined two ideas we still felt that this would be too hard to show as it would have required a lot of character development and we would have only had a maximum of roughly 5 minutes to show this. 

• Another idea we came up with about a young boy whose parents are forcing him to join a private school and although their best intentions are at heat he feels as if they are being too forceful; even in some cases he feels as if they are being abusive towards him. As as result of this he decides to leave home and move to Brighton where he lives with several different people whilst he 'sofa- surfs', but eventually he becomes homeless and lives a reckless, sad life on the streets of Brighton. Although Brighton being an accepting and understanding place of all types of cultures and different types of humans this is not enough to save him getting involved in small gangs in Brighton. Finally he realises how good his life was at home compared to being on the streets and decides to make an apology to his parents, but to find out that they no longer care about him anymore. 
• This type of short film would have been far too detailed and complicated for it to have been kept in the allocated time. We felt that this idea would also have taken a lot of character development which may have been hard to show in such a short period of time. We decided to chose this theme of being homeless because of a short film I watched about Gun crime against small gangs in London - the short film was called 'Two wrongs' And although this does not have much to do with being homeless it made me realise imagine if the boys in 'Two wrongs' were homeless it would have made their situation so much harder. 

• We used the student room for ideas which helped in some ways but a lot of the ideas were too ridiculous or had been done before which was not too helpful. However we read the story of a post about a boy who was being stalked on his way back from a night out by a man in a suit. At first we thought this idea seemed comical as it suggested the man who was following him was dancing around with a big grin on his face. This idea actually got made into a real short film called 'the smiling man'. We first watched this film without sound and a times it seems comical due to the dancing and the over friendliness of the man, however we then listened to it afterwards with sound which really adds an element of suspense and eerie atmosphere to the film. 

• We finally decided on a short film about a man who has schizophrenia. The main storyline will be about a man who gets stalked by another person - however this person's identity is left a mystery all throughout the short film so that the audience are left in suspense. We were inspired by the short film 'the smiling man', which has been previously mentioned but we thought the idea of someone getting stalked was something which we could represent through using someone professional like a psychiatrist asking questions to the patient. We are also going to represent the idea of having schizophrenia through the use of flash backs which will illustrate how this character is being stalked and how it is progressively affecting him more throughout the short film.