Things that needed to be improved upon - Feedback received 16/09/11
- Make it a social realism/period drama hybrid.
- I should stick to the original true story of the lifeboat tragedy in order achieve greater authenticity.
- Therefore, because the contextual information of the story is ambiguous, I may need to add a foreword in before the film starts which gives the audience the contextual knowledge needed to fully understand the message and morals of the narrative.
- Change the message in the telegram to "missing in action" to create a bigger internal conflict within the protagonist.
- The date shouldn't be so finalised; make it more ambiguous to reflect the fact he is missing. The audience are then unaware of just how long for, which again emphasizes the protagonist's conflictions.
- The woman should have a young child so that the story is more emotive and can allow for a larger conflict/opposition.
- Make the narrative take place on a specific day, e.g. their anniversary, the child's birthday,etc so that the plot becomes much more potent and anchored. As Marilyn Milgrom advised in her article, The Script: "It can be useful to set your film around a familiar event so that you can take for granted the audience's familiarity with the situation".
- The only set of dialogue should be the child questioning their father's whereabouts such as "Is Daddy coming home today?". This creates an ideal dilemma for both mother and child. How do you tell your own child that their father may never come home? This is the conflict experienced by my protagonist; she is faced with the internal conflict of moving on herself, but also the external opposition of having to bring the child along at the same pace.
