Story

The overall storyline of mine is about a cheery delivery driver who goes around door to door, dropping off people’s products that they have ordered online. As he drops off the product to each building, the camera follows the customer inside the house, and we get to have a glimpse of what their seemingly ordinary lives are like, but within each house, there are underlying stories that you wouldn’t notice at first.

To start, we see Dan, the delivery driver, filling up his car with cardboard boxes, ready to start delivering. After he’s filled the car up, he gets in and sets off to start his work. The camera follows Dan as he drives towards his first house. He pulls up outside of a big fancy looking house, but also very quiet.

He knocks on the door and he’s hears a teenager shout for his Dad telling him someone is at the door. After a brief few seconds, a tired, un-interested teenager opens the door and signs for the package without saying anything. Dan leaves and the camera follows the teenager back inside his house, in which we see a very tidy house, with everything organised. The teenager dumps the parcel onto the table in the kitchen and walks through, in which we see his Dad in front of a laptop working, looking very busy. The teen tells his dad that the parcel has arrived and he replies by saying “yes, whatever I’m working” the boy looks fed up and goes to slump on sofa and turns the TV on in the room next to where the dad is working. As it turns on the dad stops what’s he’s doing and shouts “turn that off I’m trying to work! Go in the other room if you want to watch TV!” Fed up the boy heads over to the other room, before he enters he gets a text, looks at his phones, then starts acting suspicious he heads upstairs into his parents’ bedroom and goes through one of his dads jackets and takes some money and cigarettes out of it. He grabs a bag from his room and heads downstairs to the kitchen. He takes a bottle of vodka and some cans of alcohol from his fridge and chucks them in his bag. He tells his dad that he is heading out and his dad replies bluntly “okay”. The camera follows the boy outside and he makes a phone call saying that he’s on his way.

The second house Dan pulls up to is an ordinary looking house. He pulls up outside and takes the parcel for the house out of the car. He walks up to the door and knocks. A man swings the door open rapidly. He’s very cheery and polite to Dan. He signs for the package, says thank you, Dan walks off and the camera follows the man inside. He goes through to the kitchen and in there we see his wife leant over the table counter with a lot of bills spread out over the table, he chucks the parcel on the table and looks to his wife and says “what have you ordered now?” he opens the box and sees clothes and shoes in there. He begins to get angry and goes “Clothes?! Fucking clothes?! We’ve got enough money troubles and you’re ordering fucking clothes!” he begins throwing them everywhere and chucks the box on the floor. The wife begins to apologise and get upset, and the man says he’s had enough, picks up his jacket and storms towards the front door. Before he gets there, their daughter comes down on the stairs and asks “why are you two fighting?” the father looks at her and the mum comforts her saying “were not fighting, were just having a talk, now please go wait in your room. The daughter runs off upstairs and the mum turns towards the dad. He says to her “I just can’t do this anymore, I’m sorry” he opens the door quickly and leaves.  The women still upset and distressed, goes upstairs and peaks through the door into her daughters’ room and she’s sat watching tv. The mum then heads to the bathroom, shuts the door and sits down. She rolls her sleeves up and we saw lots of self harming scars all up her arm. She picks up a razor blade and begins to cut herself.

Cut back to Dan in the car sat outside the previous customer’s house, sorting out his sat nav to the next delivery. As he is doing this, we see the man storming out of the house he just delivered too. Dan watches him for a brief moment, sorts his sat nav out, and then drives off.

The third house he delivers too is a small cottage in the country side. He pulls up outside and knocks on the door. the camera goes to the window and we see a little old lady standing up out of her seat and walk to the door. Camera glides back to the door and she opens it. Dan says "Good afternoon Mrs.Reid, how are you today?" then have a conversation and as she signs for the package she gets confused on how to use the machine, Dan helps her and then begins to carry the box inside for her. She asks him if he would like a cup of tea, but he kindly refuses as he has to work, they both walk to the front and say goodbye. After the door shuts, the Lady drops her walking stick and heads back into her living room walking normally. She sits down back in and puts a gaming headset on and picks up a controller and starts playing a violent video game, there is also lots of electric gadgets on the table in front of her such as  ipads and phones etc. Then the scene ends.

Finally, Dan sets off home, Relieved that his working day is over. He pulls up to a big block of flats and heads inside. He opens his front door and greets his dog, we see framed pictures of him and his girlfriend. He makes a cup of tea and heads through into the bedroom. In there we see his girlfriend lying in bed looking very ill. He walks over and places the cup of tea down next to her on the bedside table. He asks her how she is feeling and she replies “not too well, I feel really weak, but I’ll be okay” and gives a slight smile. They begin talking and the camera moves out of the room, then fade to black.

Inspiration

I have watched a lot of films based upon human nature and what I enjoy about them is that they get me to think about what life is really like other than my own. I like films that really make the person concentrate on and really try to understand the underlying story within the film. Films such as “in Bruges”, in which two hit-men are hiding out in Belgium, and to start with we know just as much as the characters in the film as to why they are there. But as the film goes on, it reveals subtle hints why they are there and what could really be going on.

Second film which was the main inspiration to mine is a short film called “An interesting ball” it has the same concept as my one; Lots of short stories and to get from one story to another, it uses a ball, whereas in mine, I’m using a delivery driver. I loved this film as it was multiple stories and all of them had an underlying theme that linked them all together, much like my film will.

Throughout my life I have met a lot of people, and when I first meet them I kind of get an understanding of what their life is like. But when I go round their houses, almost always, I find that their life is completely different to how I expect it to be, and I learn stories about them which I would never imagined they would’ve been in. This has always been something has interested me and why people are the way they are.

This is the idea I want to incorporate into my film, to give away with visuals what the lives of each home is like but only subtly, not having to hand-hold the viewer through the whole film. I want them to really try and understand what is happening in each house and why it is like that, and give them hints in each one before it is revealed. When they first see the character in the house, they will act a certain way but when they are in private, they will act completely different and as their “true” selves.

Identifying My Audience

My main target audience will been teens/young adults. After reading through the entirety of the Mosaic Chart, I have decided that my film will be mainly aimed at group O of it. This category focuses mainly on young students/adults who are living on their own. I chose this group because I believe that they tend to watch short-films more often than others, and are more open to more experimental types of film, such as my own.