Brief: Reinvent a history for someone whom you have lost touch.

 

Ideation

Brainstorming session:

• Actually a secret spy assigned to us, to protect us from danger. But once we are out of danger, they’re job is done and hence, we lost touch.
• Have superpowers
• Lost touch because they have a secret responsibility, unable to hang out as much as before
• Fake freshie! We are not friends anymore because she lied!
• Couch potato
• Crazy cat lady
• Died
• Unhealthy obsession with couponing/getting discounts/became Karang guni

 

The idea featuring a friend who has passed on caught our attention since it’s a very different way of interpreting the brief. Initially, we were afraid that this idea of reinventing a history for the dead friend would not answer the brief. But we argue that losing a friend to death is losing touch as well. When we lose touch with a friend who is still alive, we can still know what they’re up to by ‘stalking’ them on their social media platforms. It is still possible to reconnect with them. However, it is impossible to do so for a dead friend, the only plausible way to ‘reconnect’ is perhaps in the afterlife.

In this case, we are not only losing touch physically and emotionally, but losing touch with the entirety of the friend since the friend is no longer alive.

 

Chosen Idea Development

Loosely based on Zhen Qi’s experience – Her sister once fainted in the toilet and bled heavy due to an injury caused by the impact of her fall. Due to the blood loss, her sister’s face became as pale as death. Thank goodness her sister is ok now!

Also loosely based on Hannah’s experience – Lost her basketball friend in Secondary 2. She always thought that this friend would one day become a pro basketball player. Now whenever Hannah plays basketball, she would be reminded of this friend.

 

Reference:

 

Possible direction:

• Dead friend’s face will not be seen – she will be shown with no eyes or only show her back view. Hint towards the fact that this dead friend is a ghost and she wasn’t there the whole time. [Rejected – difficult to execute]
• Two friends running happily in the rain together, but only the alive friend is wet and the other friend is dry. Shot of the feet of the two friends, only the alive one has wet shoes, dead friend has dried shoes. When the dead friend drinks something, the cup is always full. When at the beach, the dead friend leaves no footprints. [Rejected – some scenes might be cheesy]
• Dead friend is always cheerful, alive friend is solemn.

 

Storyline:

A story of 2 close-knit sisters who grow up staying in the same room. The little sister dreams of becoming a pilot, hence her side of the room is heavily decorated with aeroplane-related things, such as paper aeroplanes and posters. Big sister is supportive of her little sister’s dreams and antics. Scenes of sisters playing with paper aeroplanes. Tragic scene reveals that the little sister died. Big sister is now reminiscing their good times, bringing a box of paper aeroplanes to the places that they used to play at. Story ends with big sister flying a paper aeroplane into the distance, signifying her letting go of her little sister, allowing her little sister to finally soar.

 

Execution

 

Minor adjustment to story:

Ruyi, as well as a few of our classmates, had pointed out that our characters felt more like best friends/roomies rather than sisters since the location of our shoot was a hall. So we decided that our characters could be such best friends that they are more like sisters.

 

Different shots:

 

Our Stories

Jocelyn:

 

Francesca:

 

Zhen Qi:

 

Hannah: