Development

Development of narrative, script, and storyboard In the genre of thriller, our narrative started with two options. The first one is murdering and the second one is robbing. These two are the most classic and easily understandable plots in the thriller genre. The reason we wanted to develop these two storylines is because it would benefit us in creating a film opening that caters the wide range of audience. First I was inspired by the movie “Ocean’s 8” because it was a breakthrough for robbery movies. It was based on women and it used more delicate and clever ways to do the robbery instead of the usual killing, stealing, running. Compared to other narratives, this would be an easier approach since we have limited props, settings, and actress.

Some rough notes for the planning: Thriller Setting could be at: 798/backstage/photoshoot studios Stealing an item Action in valleys Security check A shot of it there and then absent Sequence: Drawing establishing shot of many people there Close up onto the drawing Lead security and faculties away Exposed goes into jail Skips time and comes out of jail returns to their job Robbery achieves Who is it about: two women robbers what do they want: steal precious jewelry, the necklace to get money Why can’t they do it: they lacked experience, new people what do they try: steal a necklace by replacing it Why doesn’t that work: there are a lot of security systems how does it end: get caught Who is it about: (boss)competitors what do they want: the necklace because owning it means he gets full control of the stock market Why can’t they do it: it’s very precious, a lot of securities, can’t take them by power What do they try: hire agents Why doesn’t that work: lack experience How does it end: their agents end in jail Motive: The two robbers all desperately needs money, they will get a lot by achieving this mission Lead to: Working together-fighting

However after this rough planning, it seems that this storyline is…

-hard to have many alterations where we could add our own elements and ideas

-limited setting due to covid

-hard to find police/security costumes

But we really liked the narrative and don’t want to give it up, so Shirley wrote up a rough draft of the script and I edited it and made a storyboard to see if it would work out.

SCRIPT:

EXT. SHOPPING MALL – NIGHT

WE OPEN with the shot of the siren ringing. Following with Angelina and Shirley running to escape from the cops. However, they get caught at the end and brought into the jail.

THREE DAYS BEFORE…

INT. OFFICE – DAY

CROSS-CUTTING scene of Angelina and Shirley picking up their phones. With Angelina sitting in her house watching outside of her window, and Shirley just about to party and drink alcohol in her friend’s house.

MALE and FEMALE BOSS

I have a mission for you

MALE BOSS

It has been a long time since

I called you, Angelina.

Angelina

What do you want me to do

this time?

FEMALE BOSS

I need you to go to this auction

tomorrow night

MALE BOSS

Starting at 7 Pm

FEMALE BOSS

At Avenue’s road number 8th.

MALE BOSS

An electronic invitation card

Has already been sent to your

Email.

SHIRLEY

Who’s the target?

FEMALE BOSS

An object, not a person this time.

SHIRLEY and ANGELINA

What?

FEMALE and MALE BOSS

A necklace.

MALE BOSS

A necklace that represents power,

I must get it so that I can inherit

all the money from my father

FEMALE BOSS

However, you must be aware that

you’re not the only one involved. There

are other competitors after this task as well.

ANGELINA

What?! Then what am I supposed to do?

SHIRLEY

Beat them up?

MALE BOSS and FEMALE BOSS

Sure

MALE BOSS

But no, I don’t want more trouble

FEMALE BOSS

Steal the necklace is all you need

To do

FAMLE BOSS and MALE BOSS

Understood?

SHIRLEY and ANGELINA

Yessir.

STORYBOARD draft 1

After feeling it could be a good shot, I did some shots in home, however it seems that the storyline is too simple and boring which makes it hard to add more of our own angles into it.

Here is the link to the video: https://youtu.be/bQzIzs_ZpbM

This is what I filmed So then we changed our focus to the other option which is murder. This time, we considered a rather “easy to shoot” plot. From various murder movies and TV series that me and Shirley watched, we decided to have a narrative that is more life based.

1. it would be easier for us to move our shooting forward because all the setting, props, and costumes, are ready.

2. the audience will feel that they are “familiar” with the narrative

We were inspired by the movie “Black Swan” and we decided that a girl named Tiffany (originally we named her Britney) would have the character of the evil black swan and a girl named Tess would have the character of the “ugly duck”. The reason why this narrative is appealing is because it has possibilities of many different outcomes. The black swan (antagonist) could be evil from start to end and hurt the innocent “ugly duck” or she could transform into a protagonist and make a fresh start. The ugly duck character has potential of becoming a beautiful white swan or an evil black swan. Elevator pitch: Britney and Tess are two girls that live in completely different lifestyles. Britney is a rich, popular girl that gets everything she wants without putting in effort while Tess comes from a poor family background and she works hard for everything she receive. Britney stole Tess’s brand new life in university, the only chance to change her unfortunate life. Therefore, Tess wants to revenge… The outline for various characters Who is it about: rich, mean, party girl who lives her life under her parents path what do they want: impress her parents by getting into university with a scholarship Why can’t they do it: she was revenged by the poor girl and got injured, her parents feel that she can’t do anything by herself what do they try: tries to tell the poor girl that she also had hardness, she was sorry about what she did Why doesn’t that work: the poor girl does not believe it how does it end: the port girl sees her suffers, tries to help her Who is it about: poor, hardworking girl who worked very hard her whole life to go to university but her scholarship got taken what do they want: revenge and take back her plain university life Why can’t they do it: had the name of criminal, scholarship was cancelled, had no money to go to university what do they try: try to steal from the rich girl’s family Why doesn’t that work: was caught by the family guard how does it end: the rich girl helps her solve the crisis Narrative that the film opening will include: (First draft) Tess has been following Britney for a long time, she got familiar with her house and thought of a plan. Tess put a thin layer of transparent paper on the lock. One day, Tess followed Britney to her house, after Britney used her fingerprint to open the door, she used the tape to open her house while Britney is changing. Britney opens the TV and start to call with her friend. She is getting ready to go to a party. While she uses the little mirror to put lipstick on, she saw a person standing behind the chair in the shadow. She screamed and luckily, she was only injured. SCRIPT！(on another page named Script) Then I made a storyboard which was much more detailed with annotations on what shots and camera methods we could be using. This would help us get through our shooting easier and faster since we know how we could push the storyline forward. STORYBOARD draft 2

As we process forward and shot our film opening, there were places of the first draft storyline and character outline we had to discard and alter. For example: -the storyline where she opens the door with tape is too complicated for our limited amount of props. -Britney was called Tiffany instead -The calling was moved to when she opens her door which became the stimuli to her rush into house and forgetting to close the door properly -Outline for the characters were not that complicated -the part where the poor girl was caught is deleted -instead of telling/showing the audience that Britney(Tiffany) was injured in the end, we left it unsolved to make it more dramatic -does not explain the reason of why this whole injury happened at the beginning to engage the audience to keep on watching, etc.

HOWEVER…

After our first final edition of the film opening, we decided that the whole thing was what we expected. It was more of a short film that we see on TikTok. So we planned and created a new storyline based on our original narrative. The key is to have someone explaining what’s happening, it makes the narrative clearer to the audience. So I had a new role which is to play the police, and ask Shirley’s character what she’s up to.

Here is the script (a stands for Angelina, s stands for Shirley):

a：哟！还有心思涂口红呢 挺悠闲啊 (pause) 你好好看看吧 回想一下 4月9号那天晚上 你在哪

s：i have the right to remain（interupt）

a：说人话！人是你杀的吧

s：我说不是你信吗

a：没时间跟你玩游戏

s：我这算是正当防卫

a：我凭什么信你 你最好把来龙去脉给我说清楚

s：那晚我像往常一样走回家 刚到的时候接到了stephanie的电话 她让我赶紧收拾打扮去参加party 所以我进门的时候没太注意门有没有关严 换完衣服后我坐在梳妆台刚准备开始化妆 结果就从镜子里看到了她

a： 然后呢

s： 我吓的推到了镜子 她用丝巾死死的勒住我的脖子 我吓坏了 真是个疯子 竟然用我的丝巾！不过我也感谢她幸好用的是我的丝巾 这鬼丝巾很容易就会被撕坏 我拼了老命的帮她撕 我快昏迷的时候它终于撕坏了 这女的直接摔回去了…

a：你说重点 人是怎么杀的

s：我就在她摔倒的时候用我桌子上的剪刀朝着她脖子捅了几下 就这么简单

a：那你为什么不报警

s：我当时吓坏了！只能…

a：只能怎么样！

This time, we have chosen to make it Chinese based because we have a Asian feature, it would not look natural in the setting we have to speak fluent English while communicating, especial when I‘m a cop.