Post 5; Reseaching short film content C

In order to get the best grade I can I did some additional research into films that have the same themes as the one we are making. This would help influence our own script.

The first film I looked at was Trust.

 

Annie Cameron is 14 and lives in suburban Chicago, she has a good relationship with her family. On her birthday, her parents give her a laptop and when she meets Charlie in an online chat room, she establishes an instant connection with him. At first, Charlie tells her that he is sixteen years old. Over time, as the two bond by sending phone text messages and through instant messaging, he tells her his age is really 20, then 25. Annie dismisses these concerns as she believes they love each other. After three months of communicating electronically, Charlie invites Annie to meet him at the mall.

When Charlie appears, she discovers he is significantly older than he presented himself to be, appearing to be in his late thirties or early forties. Annie is upset about him having lied about his age, but still spends time with him after he compliments and sweet-talks her and convinces her to ignore their age difference. He then persuades her to go to a motel with him where he gets her to model lingerie and proceeds to have sex with her. All this is being secretly filmed by him.

After not hearing from him for a few days, Annie’s behavior starts to change towards those closest to her. Her best friend, who had seen her at the mall with an older man, is concerned and goes to tell the school counselor. The police arrive and take Annie away to talk to her about what happened. The FBI starts an investigation with the help of an unwilling Annie, who still believes Charlie loves her but because of the investigation has been scared off. The FBI gets Annie to contact Charlie so they can identify him but he figures out what they are doing and disconnects.

A few more days pass, and although Charlie has not been identified, DNA evidence proves he has done the same thing with other young girls who reported it to the police. This causes Annie to be devastated because she thought she was special, but after seeing pictures of the other girls, she feels betrayed, and she finally admits to herself, and to her hospital counselor, that she was raped.

After seeing a website where people where belittling the fact that she was raped Annie tries to commit suicide but is saved by her father. The family then slowly tries to rebuild their lives. As the end credits begin a home video is shown to reveal that Charlie is a high school professor who is married with a young son.

Trust shows the steps of grooming as well as what happens after it has been discovered. We are focusing on the steps of grooming and seeing them laid out as they were in Trust has given me ideas on how our group could incorporate them into our film.

These are two trailers for the film both focus on different aspects of the film; the first on the supposed security associated with the family and home and the second of the dangers of the internet.

 

The second film I looked at was The Lovely Bones.

14 year old Susie is viciously murdered by her neighbour in an underground den. She finds herself stuck between heaven and hell watching her family as they try and work out what happened to her whilst falling apart themselves.

This film, although isn’t about sexual grooming has aspects of it, when the neighbour (George Harvey) brings Susie down to his underground den he tries to seduce her, which the audience find out isn’t the first time he has done this. This twist shocks the audience and is what we hope to do with our own film.

This is the trailer for The Lovely Bones, it shows the effect sexual abuse and murder have on people, especially the family.

 

Post 4: Researching short film content B

As a group we decided that to gain a better understanding of how sexual groomers are portrayed we should look at other films and books that focused on the topic of sexual grooming. One book, turned film ,that we looked at was Lolita.

Lolita was originally a book by Vladimir Nabokov and was made into a film in 1962. It follows the life of a middle aged professor named Humbert Humbert who falls in love with his landlady’s flirtatious 14 year old daughter who he affectionately calls Lolita. When Lolita is sent to an all-girls summer camp Humbert returns to find a note from his land lady, Charlotte, stating that she has fallen in love with him and he must either leave or marry her which he does in order to stay close to Lolita.




After their honeymoon Charlotte finds Humbert’s diary in which he has written about his feelings towards Lolita, distraught, Charlotte runs out of the house and gets hit by a car and dies. Humbert goes and collects Lolita from camp and they begin traveling before settling into a new life. However they are met with questions about their relationship and Humberts ‘over protected daughter’. It ends with Lolita running away from Humbert. After several years she contacts him asking for money and he demands to know what happened to her and she tells him about Clare Quilty, who the audience see at the beginning of the film when Humbert goes to kill him.

Looking at this book and film has been extremely helpful to us as the story line is similar to what we what to achieve in our own film. Lolita is written from the point of the groomer, Humbert, and after doing lots of research, we have found is the only story written like this. As a group we had already come to the decision that as a twist we would write the script from the point of view of the groomer. The research into Lolita has also given us ideas about how to show the different stages of grooming. It also makes the audience wonder if what is happening on screen is actually happening due to the unreliable narrative.
 

 

From reading reviews I found that nearly everyone who had read the book had found themselves feeling sorry for or understanding the point of view of Humbert which is what we want to achieve.

 

Post 3; Researching short film content A

To insure our film plot was as accurate as possible we first did a lot of research into the subject of sexual grooming. Sexual grooming is a very serious subject and we wanted to portray it as accurately but at the same time as sensitively as we could.

To do this we interviewed our School Child Protection Officer to get a better idea of what actually goes on and who it affects. Not only did this interview open our eyes to how horrible grooming is but also to how it can be hidden so easily from people leaving the child helpless. We will use this information and the secondary research we got online to help us write a script that is as close to the truth as possible.

 

 

 

Here is a link to the interview with the School Child Protection Officer: Sound Cloud Sexual Grooming Interview 

 

In the interview the Child Protection Officer talked about what grooming is and how a groomer doesn’t just groom a child but their family and friends. They often portray themselves to be trustworthy and caring which makes their presence around the family and even more so the child unquestionable and normal.

He also mentions how very often the child in question doesn’t realise they are being groomed but believes that their family friend, uncle or someone else is just being caring and that the relationship is normal, because of this they don’t speak out about what is happening.

Our group learnt so much from this interview with the School Child Protection Officer which will help greatly when it comes to writing our script and making it as realistic as possible.