The Brief
The scene begins with molly Kent receiving a text message, as she reads the text it becomes evident to the audience it is from ‘Tom’ (Thomas walker) which is her boyfriend, or someone she is romantically involved with. The text reads something along the lines of ‘please can we meet up tonight’. Molly types out a reply saying ‘fine, but for the last time’, making it clear that there is some conflict between the two and that she is not keen to see him. Thomas is seen sitting alone somewhere else (at school it appears) and receives her reply. Upon reading it he is seen to smile signifying he is glad that she has agreed to meet to up with him, but also foreshadowing possibly that he has plans for the meeting. Tom then proceeds to take a number of pills and places the pot on the table in front of him. As a close up of the pill pot is seen the label can be read, and it states that the pills are to be taken for schizophrenia. The shot fades out to that evening as Molly walks to meet Tom. As she approaches the area they have agreed to meet Tom is waiting in semi-darkness and steps forward excited to see her, she on the other hand gets straight to the point telling him that this is the last time she will meet up with him and that it is time her left her alone. She tells him that his constant texts etc. are bothering her and that it is unhealthy that he is so obsessive and then she leaves. As she leaves Tom tries to grab her to plea with her to listen to him but she brushes him off and quickly walks away. The next few shots show Molly walking away from their meeting to what we presume is back home, however she is not alone. The shots reveal Tom in the background following her. He progressively gets closer and closer to her and eventually in a deserted alleyway grabs her arm and turns her around, grabbing her by the throat and pushing her up against the wall. At this point the scene fades out and what happens next is left in mystery. The sound of a mobile phone ringing is heard, as the next scene is fading in. The scene fades in to the phone sitting on a bedside table ringing with the incoming call being from Andrew. Tom appears to be in bed and wakes up due the ringing phone and answers it. As the conversation takes place it becomes evident that Andrew is simply one of Tom’s friends who has been trying to get hold of him all morning. Andrew then breaks the news to Tom that ‘his girlfriend Molly’ is missing. Toms’ genuine shock at what Andrew tells him shows that the previous nights events are unclear to him and the audience become unsure of whether or not he is the one who did something to Molly or possibly that he is simply crazy (linking back to him taking medication for schizophrenia) he drops the phone in shock and rushes out of bed to the bathroom. It becomes obvious he is confused and disorientated and even upset after hearing the news about his girlfriend and opens the bathroom cupboards and gets out the same pills seen previously. He hesitates momentarily and decided not to take the pills and instead in order to calm himself splashes his face with water. At this point vivid flash backs of him strangling Molly appear and he stumbles across the room struggling with what he is seeing and how quickly it is coming back to him. As the flashes stop and it is clear what has happened and that he is responsible for Molly being missing and/ or dead he sits down on the edge of the bath in shock. A mobile phone ringing is heard coming from another room and a shot of his dropped phone in his bedroom is seen. The incoming call is from Molly!
At this point the opening extract that I have filmed ends…
However the rest of the film would follow as such;
Tom would answer the phone and it would hang up leaving him confused as to what was going on. The audience would question whether or not Tom’s memories of killing Molly were real or simply part of his insanity. After that the film would continue with Tom going about his daily life for a few days but constantly paranoid and on edge as the flashbacks continue randomly and he then begins seeing Molly standing around. He constantly would be looking behind his shoulder and become very withdrawn avoiding phone calls as they are constantly from Molly. He is however too afraid to answer them. The audience at this point would still be unsure as to what was happening, and whether or not Molly ringing Tom is real or part of Toms poor mental state. As the film continues texts and calls from what appears to try an convince Tom to confess what he has done. Eventually his mental state deteriorates even more and he admits to killing her. The phone calls and texts are later explained by there being a witness to the murder who pretending to be Molly drove Tom further insane. The witness’ motives was to make sure that justice was done and thus he slowly broke Tom down until he had to admit what he had done but also admit that he was receiving calls from the person he had murdered, leaving authorities no choice but to commit him to an institution.
Certification/Target audience
I decided that the certification for my film will be 15. I have chosen this because I feel that although there are some violent and scary scenes in my film they are not too much for someone under 18 to handle. The scenes aren’t excessively violent and don’t show members of the audience how to actually commit the violence. The violent scenes are quick and dark and don’t show any graphic details. Also as my film’s actors are under 18 and the target audience that I would like to appeal to is teenagers to young adults, it seems 15 is the right age restriction. Children under 15 may find some of the scenes a little bit more disturbing than those older viewers. With my plan for the film later featuring some very jumpy scenes where Thomas would imagine Molly standing behind him etc. These scenes may not be appropriate for under 15 year olds so I think that is the correct certification to have chosen for my particular film.
The reason I have chosen my target audience as teenagers to young adults (British) so in general the British youth, is because I feel that my opening highlights many problems with the youth of Britain today. The actors, both appearing middle-class and therefore representing the majority of people that would watch it, reflect member of society today. the opening shows the crime that goes on even in rural, quieter towns and points out that it’s not only in bigger cities that these problems arise. People with a disability also generally can receive a lot of poor treatment in the way that people don’t understand their conditions properly and therefore instead of helping generally the youth will mock and tease those who are different. I think the opening highlights the problems that might go on behind closed doors and Tom appears fine until his temper gets the better of him. The idea that maybe if Molly understood his condition more thoroughly instead of simply passing his behaviour off as being ‘creepy’ then maybe what happened might not have happened. The reason for the chosen target audience is therefore also to spread some awareness of those who are challenged daily but are often ignored due to their condition not being obvious.
Burfordmedia Graveyard 