Original Production Notes (October - November 2018)

 

 

Production Title: Polperro

 

Synopsis:

After the death of her Grandmother, a reclusive young Woman discovers a clue that could lead to the Father she never knew, disowned by her Family long ago…

 

About Polperro:

Polperro is a coming of age story/drama about a reclusive young Woman desperately searching for answers regarding the Father she never knew, disowned by her family for reasons kept from her. Emma’s Grandmother has just passed away, she was a kind Woman who stayed close to Emma and her Mother even though they’re not blood relatives and even after the actions of her Son and Emma’s Father came close to driving the entire Family apart. Emma is given one of her Grandmother’s old vintage Cameras, holding inside an undeveloped roll of film. On this Emma finds one surviving photograph, a shot of her Grandmother with a young boy in a beautiful seaside Village, she knows this place and her Grandmother, but not the boy. Could he be her Father? Emma travels to Polperro and tracks down the boy from the Photograph, is he her Father?

 

The film will explore complex Family and relationship dynamics, focusing on the effect that absence can have on someone’s life as they step into adulthood. The film will follow protagonist Emma as she goes on both a physical and mental journey to attempt to unlock the secrets of her Family, this journey will change Emma as she decided to finally discover the truth for herself, but which one?

 

Cast:

• Lo Axenderrie - Emma

• Tip Cullen - John

• - Molly

• - Bartender

Crew:

• Charlie Smith - Director, Writer & Editor (?)

• Alfie Goodwin - DOP

• Annie Deane -

• Lucie Eckersley -

• Matt Baker - Production Designer

• Niall Higham - Music

 

Shooting Locations:

• Plymouth (In & around streets, house/bedroom set)

• Train/s (In carriage and on station/s)- May have to rethink this

• Polperro (Pub/docks/cave/seafront/hills)

 

Plot themes & Key Points:

1. Emma needs to have a revelation by the end of the film; she needs to realise that she doesn’t need to know who her Father is as she already has friends and family around her. Despite being distant from her Mother as shown earlier in the film.

2. She also needs to be able to relate to John but also question him; he reveals to her that he has his own Family as well as his own dark past, he had a wife before but they divorced due to his alcoholism, he then met someone new and turned his life around. Emma is initially confused by all of this, immediately relating it to her Father; if John could turn his life around and be happy but also not forget his previous life, how could her Dad? John tries to reassure her. She leaves the conversation uneasy. He offers her a cigarette (this will be a recurring theme throughout the film) but she refuses. The film ends with her making a phone call to her Mother.

3. When should I set this film? I need to be careful with avoiding obvious plot holes/questions; Why doesn’t Emma google her family tree? Why doesn’t she use Facebook to search? Why does she care so much in a digital age? I could solve this by simply setting this film in the past, 80’s? I don’t want to just do it for the sake of it or for an easier explanation. If Emma lives in the modern world and chooses to go on a physical, real adventure to find her Father it shows a lot more about her Character and her motivation to discover the truth? Other questions: Why does she know NOTHING about her Father? Why has her Mother not told her anything and why did the Father’s mother stay connected to the Family? I think an interesting way to work around this would be suggesting that Emma’s Father has done something to her family truly horrible enough to warrant being completely disowned. He did this awful thing before Emma was even born and was never seen by his Family again. It will be interesting to leave this completely to the viewer’s imagination, we don’t need to know all the answers and specific, perhaps horrible details.

4. Why is Emma distant from her family? She lives away from them, and as she has grown older and gained her independence she resents them for not telling her the truth about her father (hint at this with shots of many texts from the mother Emma hasn’t replied to or has given blunt, cut off responses

5. We’re also introduced to Emma’s best friend; she calls Emma as soon as she’s back in Plymouth asking her to come and calm her down because of a panic attack, this shows us how Emma is outgoing with her friends but not with her family as much. The conversation with Emma’s friend needs to have either a parallel or a contrast between the later conversation with John. Emma’s friend leads most of the conversation (it’s hinted that this is a common occurrence) and leaves little time for Emma to input her own problems. Her friend finally asks her and she diverts the conversation back to her friend’s problems. This is contrasted later where Emma properly leads the conversation

 

Plot Breakdown:

 

1. Film opens with Emma on her train back to Plymouth, she has travelled back home to attend her Grandmother’s funeral, at which she received a package left to her from Grandmother.

2. On the train she receives a text from Mother, thanking her for coming back for the funeral and asking Emma to keep in touch more (here we see previous texts from mum, with no replies, further showing distant relationship)

3. Emma gets home and leaves package on her desk, in her room we see her Camera collection, showing us her interest in Photography. On the wall behind her desk is a large poster with all of her to do lists, we see how much work she has to do, due in 2 days

4. She unpacks and begins to get ready for bed when her phone rings, it’s her best friend. Emma says she’s tired and can’t really talk but her friend is in distress and asks Emma to come and meet her. She agrees.

5. Emma meets her friend downtown and listens to her while she explains her fight with her boyfriend, she is in hysterics. This conversation will act as a parallel and contrast to the one with John later on. She listens to her friend speaking at her and can barely get a word in. Her friend eventually asks how Emma’s weekend was and Emma chooses to not talk about it. Her friend offers her a cigarette and Emma accepts.

6. Her friend’s Dad eventually picks her up, Emma watches on as they drive off before walking home.

7. Emma arrives home and settles down for the evening, she once again glances over at the package and decides to unwrap it. Inside she finds an old medium format camera, her Grandmother’s. She examines it and flicks open the back compartment, finding inside a roll of presumably used film.

8. The next morning Emma wakes up and gets ready for uni, she is hesitant about taking the camera with her, she decides to bring it

9. At uni we see Emma working hard for her deadline, the camera and film sat in her bag untouched

10. As she gets ready to leave she takes the camera outside of her bag once more and looks it over, she decided to develop it

11. Emma develops the film and finds only one surviving photo, she holds it up to the light to further examine it before digitizing it.

12. The photograph shows a younger version of Emma’s Grandmother stood next to a young boy, photographed against the backdrop of a small village next to the sea

13. Emma stares into the photograph, squinting to make it out properly. She moves over and places it under the scanner, and sits staring at the screen as the image appears. Her eyes dart over the photograph, she stares at her grandmother and pan down to the young boy next to her. Emma immediately recognises the Woman as her grandmother but she has never seen the boy before, she stares into the image, putting two and two together

14. Emma believes the boy in the photo could possibly be her Father, and if so this would be the first image she’s ever seen of him

15. She opens the internet and begins typing an email to her tutor, asking him if he recognises the location from the photo, he responds, it’s Polperro

16. Emma immediately googles Polperro and scrolls through google images of it, recognising the backdrop of the photograph straight away

17. Emma texts her friend, and says something weird is going on and asks if she can talk but her friend says she’s too busy

18. At home, Emma sits on her bed, again doing her uni work, listening to her music. The deadline poster looms in the background. Emma become stressed with her work and lies back on her bed, after a few moments she grabs her phone and opens the photograph up on google drive, she zooms into the Grandmother’s face, staring into her eyes, she then pans down to the young boy

19. She closes the photograph and opens up her texts, she scrolls to her conversation with her mother and begins to type a message “Are you busy? Can I ask you something?” she hovers on the send button for a few moments before closing the app

20. She then brings her laptop back to her and opens up maps and searches for Polperro, seeing how close it is to Plymouth

21. Montage of Emma doing her uni work at uni and home, she is working her arse off

22. Days later Emma gets her grade back, a high third, with feedback, the lecturer says her work is good but he isn’t feeling a connection between her writing and her photography, they’re all great photographs but he wants to know why she’s choosing to shoot these shots *she does a lot of street photography*

23. Emma stares blankly at the screen, her eyes reading over the text again and again and again, she walks away from the screen and over to the window, she pulls out a cigarette and begins to smoke out the window. She stares out into the skyline

24. Cut to: Emma is sat on a train again, her camera wrapped around her shoulder, this scene acts as a montage as we see Emma taking the two trains and a bus to Polperro

25. Emma exits the bus at Polperro and begins walking into the village. We see varying shots of Emma walking through the village until she arrives at the seafront, the location of the original photograph that brought her here

26. She stands in front of the walkway and frames it with her camera, before shooting it

27. Emma walks through and around the village, taking photographs of people and places, we see a montage of her talking to people throughout the village

28. Eventually Emma goes into a little pub, she rests up by the bar and orders a drink. She makes conversation with the barmaid

29. She explains why she’s in Polperro, she shows the barmaid the photo and is asked if the boy in the photo is her dad, Emma says she doesn’t know. The barmaid takes a closer look at the photo and says “That looks a bit like you, John”, around the corner of the bar a Man looks up

30. Emma and the man make eye contact with each other before Emma quickly gets up and leaves as the man and the barmaid stare at her as she leaves the pub

31. Emma walks quickly away from the pub, as far as she can get, she explores the paths up the hills and eventually comes a bench

32. Emma sits down on the bench and stares out towards the sea, calming herself down. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out her pack of cigarettes only to discover its empty, she puts them back in her pocket.

33. In the background we see the man walking up the hill towards her, “excuse me” he exclaims, Emma immediately knows who it is and nervously turns around. He walks over and asks to sit

34. Emma and John get into a big chunk of dialogue, john sees the photo and explains that it’s him in the photo but that he’s not her father, they get into a big discussion and John reveals his own backstory. At the end of the conversation John offers Emma a cigarette but she refuses. She takes his portrait before they part ways.

35. Emma sits alone on the bench again, she takes a photograph of the sea in front of her, before pulling out her phone from her pocket and phoning her mum. Cut to black.

 

New Idea: Have a continued letter from Emma to her Father read to us throughout the film. At first we don’t realise it’s addressed to her father (OR) the conversation between Emma and John lingers throughout the film, at first we assume it’s narration but as we get to the conversation that’s when we put it all together