WORKING TITLE

WORKING TITLE
‘Our Empty Rooms’ (working title), a psychological thriller set The title is a reference to a T.S. Eliot poem called ‘The Waste
in a modern day London. Produced by ‘The Mental Land’, which was written when he was having a nervous
Institution’, an up and coming independent British breakdown.
production company.
TARGET AUDIENCE
SYNOPSIS Our main target audience is fans of psychological thrillers,
Tom Booly (Pedro) takes the number 91 bus every single day which spans across many demographics, but particularly, the
from his home to The British Library, where he spends his core cinema going age group of 16-24 year olds, due to our
time immersed in his favourite poetry and literature. One day contemporary and edgy style of production, and multi gender
he misses his bus and happens to meet Maya Stone (Barbe), appeal through our two leading artiste’s.
the most beautiful woman he has ever seen, who is also a fan
of poetry. From that moment on they become inseparable PRACTICALITIES
and live the romantic life that Booly has always fantasised We have secured a location and two reliable actors, who both
about. But Booly’s underlying mental issues soon emerge and do AS level drama, for our film opening. We will shoot
it becomes evident that their relationship is not as perfect, or throughout February, in the Seaward Studio, using screens
even as authentic as it appears in Booly’s mind. supplied by the art department. Being shot entirely inside, we
have total control over the mise-en-scene and lighting;
FINAL TREATMENT meaning we can manipulate and maintain continuity with
The opening scene starts in darkness. We hear a woman’s ease throughout the shoots. Charley has a real bus seat, and
voice saying softly, “Is there no way out of the mind?”. We the other props are accounted for or easily obtainable.
then see an ECU of a man’s bloodshot, frenzied eyes. Then we
are shown a wider shot of the entire room, revealing that this
man is sitting on a single chair in the middle of a tiny, white
room – a cell in a mental institute. He then hallucinates
various scenes from his past that appear in the room with
him, although in actual fact he is entirely alone. One
hallucination is a woman sitting on a bus seat next to him,
reading a poetry book. Another is the same woman sitting
opposite him at a café table, pouring ketchup into a MISE-EN-SCENE
sandwich. Throughout these visions, the man sits completely
still and does not speak; only the woman speaks. There are
also various strange sounds and flashes of light throughout
the scene, adding to the confusion. The editing between shots
will be very jumpy, and continuity rules will purposely be
broken for effect. The lighting will be very bright, giving the
scene a sterile look. We will possibly include a location switch
as one of these visions, involving the man imagining himself
to be standing on a roof. The majority of the sequence will be
shot inside this white room, however. Other things appearing
in the room may include a pool of blood, a gun, or even the
woman dead on the floor, foreshadowing the film narrative’s
tragic ending. A title will come up at the end of the sequence
saying ‘6 months earlier’, then the clip will end.

<< ANJELICA
BARBE

INFLUENCES
JOSH We were inspired by the themes of insanity and entrapment; and
PEDRO >> took influence from disturbing scenes and locations such as
‘Ward C’ from ‘Shutter Island’ (2010, Scorsese), the infamous
‘cold turkey’ bedroom scene from ‘Trainspotting’ (Boyle, 1996).
Our main character, Tom Booly, was inspired by the archetype of
the beautiful yet tortured genius, driven mad by his own
obsessions- similar to the character of Ricky Fitts in the film
‘American Beauty’ (Mendes, 1999).

JESS W, CHARLEY, ROBBIE & ODELIA