Synopsis and Treatment

SYNOPSIS

A GIRL has been living in limbo for a few years, since the love of her life left to go discover what his purpose in life is without her. She is waiting for some sort of communication from him, but as each day goes by nothing arrives. She gets more lost within herself, shying away from the rest of the world, hiding within her studio apartment; the only thread of connection to the outside world is a clothesline.

My TREATMENT...well more like a script towards the end...

Every thing is in B&W. There is a GIRL sitting in her underwear and ugg boots on the balcony of her studio, writing what looks like a love letter.

The scene is empty and grey apart from an empty pot, the painting left by her ex love, her pet goldfish in a bowl, the notepad and pen she writes with the balcony rail and a clothes line that goes off into the distance. N.B. This is symbolising that she feels she has nothing in her life…apart from the one thing she loves and trusts = her fish, the painting which is the only connection she has to the ex love and just a suggestion of where she lives.

She is endeavouring to make contact with her lost love. This has become a daily ritual cause she feels lost without him, wake up - look at his photo her heart beats hard with pulses of blue symbolising her sadness. N.B this is the only time that colour appears throughout the entire film until the end. She then goes to sit on the balcony and writes a letter, poem or a demand asking for him to return to her - the letter then folds itself into a paper aeroplane and then she lets it go out into the abyss around her; As gravity doesn’t exist in her world, the letters float off in all directions. She then walks a few steps away from the balcony rail and crawls up on the floor. She completes this ritual a few times for the audience.

On the third day she is out on the balcony struggling to write a letter, and as she looks up from the pad to search for the right words, she notices a letter pinned to the clothesline.

It’s a poem in unfamiliar handwriting…

I am still; so quietly still

A small hum resonates in the shadow’s long dark shadows that corrupt me as I lay waiting, watching the curtain drift toward me breathing lightly a gentle caress, then nothing. I awaken and my flesh is a hologram
I push it away and am floating.

I am still; so quietly still

This affects the Girl, but her emotion turns to humiliation as she scrunches the letter up and throws it over her shoulder over the balcony. A pause and the same scrunched up letter comes from in front of her and bounces off her head. She opens it up revealing a new message has been scrawled along the bottom of the page…Please stay in touch with me. Her heart starts beating again but this time its purple as she examines the letter. She hesitates but eventually writes a reply “Who ever you are, leave me alone. ” She then scrunches it back up and throws it over the edge. This time though the letter folds into a butterfly and flutters over to the clothes line and settles. The girl watches, slightly amazed, the letterfly as it slowly journeys on the clothes line into the horizon. As she turns around and walks away from the balcony, we notice a table slowly fades into the scene. N.B. this is both a prepositioning of a change that’s to come and a symbol of the girl beginning to reconnect with her life/reality.

Girl gets up, stops to looks at the photo, blue heart beats, as she makes her way out to the balcony to continue her daily ritual, she starts writing her letter. The squeaking of the clothesline as it delivers a letter, distracts her from her own writings. She just watches it for a moment until it stops right at the end. She slowly walks over and unpegs it cautiously “Thank you for responding…I assure you I am not playing games with you. Simple truth is we all need friends. So I ask…will you be mine? Looking forward to your reply!” She does with “Im sorry, but I need to know…who are you?” and then pegs it back onto the clothes line and watches it begin its journey down the line. She turns to go back inside but stops to acknowledge her goldfish as it swims closely by sort of knocking her off balance. She falls into the table, and looks at it as if seeing an old friend. She dusts off the chair and takes a seat beginning to doodle lovely things in her notepad i.e bed or wardrobe and we see them appear in her studio aparment, her heart beats with purple. She then catches a glimpse of the ex love painting; the beats stop for a moment and then restart, they are a faint blue. She gets up and walks away from the balcony to crawl up to go to sleep in the bed. The audience notices that her letter has been blown off the line.

Girl gets up, stretches and then remembers…she wanders if there is a letter waiting. She moves quicker out to the balcony, straight past the ex love painting. Its windy she pulls her cardigan tighter and squints to see if a letter is coming…there is nothing. She looks disappointed for a moment, but then recomposes herself as if she expected it. The new furniture begins to fade as she walks back to the bed.

Vignette of images – Girl writing letters, overlapped with sessions at the photo frame of the painting, overlapped with written poems/letters, overlapped with girl crawling up to sleep and then getting up robotic like.

Girl gets up, ponders over painting, blue heart beats, walks out to balcony, all the furniture is gone again. She begins writing. The clothesline squeaks, she ignores it at first and puts her head down to concentrate on writing. The squeaking gets louder as if its struggling. She looks up there is a packet. She walks over, unpegs it and examines. “Plant me” She looks around and see’s empty pot, opens the packet and pours the seeds into her hand. The pot eyes off the seeds and eats them up. A pause…a plant begins to grow. There is a message on the leaves “you will always stay just one heart beat away.” The plants grows up towards her face and carress’ it. The girls heart begins to beat a magenta pink colour. She turns to look for her notepad and we see the balcony table reappear as she reaches for the pad and scribbles something down and pegs it too the clothesline. The plant is drawing what looks like a door way and then its realised. The girl joins in drawing a window, and some more plants on the balcony, behind her we see the cityscape vaguely appear behind her – to suggest she is willing to get back into reality.

All of a sudden there is bangin at the front door, letters start to spew in through the mailbox, she picks one up. Its from her ex – the plant is trying to pull her back to the balcony, but the girl rips the letter open…

…speaking of friends; i should mention what you already
know…

The girl drops the letter to the floor. The door keeps banging and the letters are still flowing - some of them re-enact memories of that relationship. The girl grabs the lounge chair and puts it in front of the door to stop the letters…the banging doesn’t stop, but gets harder. She bolts up the door…the banging gets even harder the plant is still trying to get her to come out to the balcony, the girl follows the plant. Some letters slip through…then the door bursts down. Letters are getting blown everywhere, then scissors fly in chopping them up. They try to chop the plant but the girl distracts them, she is too late for the clothesline though, a pair of scissors cuts the line. The girl dives to grab the line before its gone forever…she just gets her finger tips on it. Mayhem is still going on in her studio, but the plant has stopped any of it from coming in close proximity to the girl as she pulls on the line. Everything begins to shake. BANG! There is a collision, colour bursts everywhere… Everything is suspended and silent…we see two sets of hands on the line. We then notice the other building and its male owner. The plant grows over onto the other building and begins blooming with forget-me-nots the flower of true love.

A letter falls it’s the letter the girl scribbled before mayhem hit…they both reach up to grab it. As the boys hand touches the girls, colour spreads into her world. She pulls away coyly, and he grabs the letter..it reads.

Whoever you are, my love, I can feel myself slowly being sewn to your side…