Synopsis

'You're Late" is a modern adaptation of Alice’s journey through Wonderland. It follows Alice, an everyday girl with Fantasy Prone Personality, who decides to chase down the white rabbit throughout the surreal countryside she lives near. The adventure starts with the white rabbit popping his head round Alice’s door and proclaiming she is late; and being the curious one she is, off Alice goes. It will be a nine-screen piece that will slowly reveal itself; each of the screens will only be visible whilst/when the characters are/have been within them. To show Fantasy Prone Personality it will begin as one large screen showing Alice doing something until the white rabbit appears; then the journey will progress until the end where the white rabbit will repeat the words “You’re late”, beeping will be heard, and then it will be back to the shot of Alice before the journey.

Treatment

The intention of 'You're Late' is to portray the mind and memory of someone with fantasy prone personality (FPP). I would like to be able to also provide an escape for those who want to get out of everyday life, to show them a surreal and beautiful world they can place themselves into all filmed within the Farnham, Aldershot and Guildford area. Fortunately with the subject of FPP I could create any kind of world possible; but I feel the less complicated and cluttered it is the more people will able to relax, the more they can sink into this other world.
  For those who do not know what fantasy prone personality is Wikipedia has the perfect description:
"Fantasy prone personality (FPP) is a disposition or personality trait in which a person experiences a lifelong extensive and deep involvement in fantasy. This disposition is an attempt, at least in part, to better describe the popular term 'overactive imagination', or 'living in a dream world'. An individual with this trait (termed a fantasizer) may have difficulty differentiating between fantasy and reality and may experience hallucinations, as well as self-suggested psychosomatic symptoms. Closely related psychological constructs include daydreaming, absorption and eidetic memory." [1]

Inspiration came for my film from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and Zbig Rybczisky's New Book. Fortunately after I came up with using the idea of FPP I found out my favourite film (The Secret Life of Walter Mitty) is actually about someone who has the personality disorder. Looking back at the film now after reading about the personality and everything it actually makes the film more interesting to me, it definitely gives you a new perspective. From this movie I want to take the structure of how they set up the 'zoned out' moments; I really liked the way they had mundane tasks, which turned into these extravagant fantasies, and then back to what Walter was doing before. You can see an example of this in the following clip:
The other influence was Zbig Rybczisky's New Book; I really enjoyed watching this experimental short film in class, and it definitely gave me the idea of moving the character throughout several screens. You can see the video at: http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/ccManager/clips/SF_Zbig_NewBook.mp4/view

The storyline/narrative will go as follows; it begins with the audience hearing a quote off Alice in Wonderland (1951), it goes “If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary-wise; what it is it wouldn't be, and what it wouldn't be, it would.”
It opens on Alice, a girl who is seemingly uninterested in everything, sat in front of a blank wall. A quote appears on the wall next to her saying “Some people, a fascinating minority, spend most of their waking lives lost in a fantasy world, leaving it to join the common reality almost as a visitor.” As the quote fades the camera vertigo zooms in on Alice, you hear the door opening as the camera suddenly pans over to see the White Rabbit dramatically enter. He looks at Alice and says the words "You're late" then disappears out of the room in a matter of seconds. With a curious look on her face Alice launches herself towards the door, escaping out of view from the camera. The screen once again turns black.
  Two videos appear; one in the upper left corner showing Alice standing outside what appears to be her front door, and one in the lower right corner showing the White Rabbit sat on a bench waiting. Alice then runs off to the right triggering another screen to appear that she has run into, she then looks at her surroundings before running off into another screen again. This will happen several times but in each screen there will be something for her to collect or look at, this is so that the audience doesn't get too bored of what they are watching. Finally she will reach the last screen and sit down next to the white rabbit, there will be a moment of complete silence until he repeats the words "You're late". Once again a blank screen will be shown with beeping in the background; then it will reveal a shot of Alice sat exactly as she was in the beginning as if nothing had happened, the camera will then zoom out to show someone stood in her doorway telling her the only two words spoken in the entire short "You're Late"

The film should only take a few days to shoot, and with only two actors needed (Alice and the white rabbit) it shouldn't be too much of a hassle. If this film is chosen I would need a crew that have a creative vision, this meaning they need to be able to see the beauty and surreal side of nature to be able to get the perfect shots. I will also need a crew who is willing to travel and spend a day looking for the right locations, perhaps all sent to different forests/woods/parks/places to take images of surreal locations and to look at them as a group and decide the best filming locations. It will need to be ready for the first week of shoots due to the fact that the film will need longer in the edit, because of all the colour corrections and the nine screens.