About A Girl

About a Girl opens with a striking shot of a silhouette — against a skyline of clouds above a field — of a girl singing the Britney Spears song "Stronger" and doing the dance routine. It cuts abruptly to a close-up of the girl talking in a strong Mancunian accent to the camera: "If Jesus were alive today — right, he'd probably be a singer." She is walking against a backdrop of Manchester's industrial landscape, talking non-stop, mixing wry statements about stardom and singers with random quotes from her parents and descriptions of her life: her relationship with her dad, her frustrations with her mum, her desire to become a famous singer, the band she has formed with her friends. Things any 13-year-old might talk about. Her monologue is interrupted and intercut with different scenes of her with her family and her dad; her in a perfume department, sitting on a bench singing "Stronger" again, and on the back of a bus with her girlfriends singing "Oops!... I Did It Again" by Britney Spears and doing the routine.

As she goes on walking alongside a canal, the girl's stories become more and more underlain by an uncomfortable feeling that the gravity of her experiences does not match her flippant retelling of her everyday life: her descriptions of her pop idols and her favourite ice cream are mixed with hints about family troubles, poverty and domestic violence.

The 'underside' to her light-hearted storytelling is revealed in a shocking scene when, stating that she has become "good at hiding things", she throws the plastic bag she has been carrying into the canal.

(Quoted from Wikipedia)

The Pitch

I've decided to do a Short-Film, below is the pitch that I would give to the BBC as I feel that as a British made film it would be something they would be interested in, I also aim to have it shown after the watershed as it contains scenes that are unsuitable for young children.

The film Annie is a Short-Film designed to not only shock but also to show a major problem we have with the media we show to young children or vulnerable adults.  My film is based on a teenage girl who watched the film "2012" and from what she saw and researched afterwards that she decided she will die on the 21.12.2012.  I chose this as I feel it's about time that the effects of media on young children or vulnerable adults can have, it isn't uncommon for fans to develop and obsession, we have had people from all walks of life connecting with a film and becoming so drawn in to it that they can't help but feel they need to mimic what they have seen, or in rarer cases have committed suicide in order to travel elsewhere, for example Pandora the fictional planet in Avatar.  I feel that this active consumption of media needs to be controlled, I feel that too many audience members are being told the fictional is solid truth as not everyone is sensible enough or educated enough to be able to distinguish the difference.  I know that this is particularly true with youths as when I was a child I believed that cartoon characters were real but they lived elsewhere, like in Poland or Russia.  This goes to show the naivety of some audience members, if it's possible to believe a drawing is real, why would they not believe that things that are real or very well drawn (CGI imaging).  I want the media world to re-assess their certificate system and to place a stronger emphasis on the importance of people being  asked to show identity at cinema's in order to prevent minors from seeing something that could cause them more harm than gain.

Get Off My Land

Get Off My Land is a short film written and directed by Douglas Ray and has been screened in 11 different festivals including Edinburgh International Film Festival.

It features a Farmer (Robert Glenister) and a young couple (Rafe Spall & Ruth Wilson).  The young couple are seen walking through some open fields together, from the opening and the distance between characters we can see that there is clearly a relationship problem.  As the young couple continue across the fields they find themselves confronted by an angry farmer claiming that they aren't on a public footpath and are in fact trespassing.  The male confronts the farmer and believing the farmer has backed down (as he walks back to his tractor) the male gives the female a smug look and she looks relatively impressed by this outburst, that is until the Farmer turns back round with a shotgun and proceeds to shoot both characters (the man first then the woman because she started crying/screaming), then he turns to the camera and calmly states, "actually, I think this part is a public footpath" shrugs his shoulders and carries on as though nothing has happened.