User:Kotryna Bu/ On Practice

Film Plan V1

Film Plan V1

• TITLE * tbd, short film 5 min (3.5 min cut for EYE screening)


Poetic exploration of modern day labour operations and commodified cuteness.



 GENRE: experimental, diaristic, multi-vocal.



 SYNOPSIS



 A glimpse of a day of young adults, meeting their ends day-to-day by different means: side jobs and various trades online.



 TREATMENT


• TITLE* centres around two broke friends looking for new possibilities to earn money. 


The film starts with character Nova, a third year anthropology student, her diaristic voice leads us through the glimpses of her day observing her neighbourhood. 
 Through Nova’s diary, we get to know her character, her soft lyrical view of the world. Her look is confident and contemporary, although she’s lost in her head because of money struggles. Through her voice we examine people around her working: her neighbour rents a Tesla to work as an Uber driver on the weekends, here’s a delivery man complimenting her looks, a neighbourhood boy on a scooter smiling at her. (People innocently gazing at her with admiration)
 An abrupt introduction of Nova’s best friend Oliver, a student who’s working as a barista and on his free time dealing all kinds of things online, designer items and vintage furniture.
 On a way to her friends house in the evening, Nova observes people on the bus being on their phones. When she reaches Oliver’s place, they have a drink outside his anti-kraak house, because Oliver rented his room for an Airbnb party. Loud music from the party is playing in the background, lights are strobing. 
 They have a drink outside in the cold and have a conversation. Drunk people are passing by. 
 Nova talks about her money struggles and they discuss possible new ways of making money online. Oliver tells about this idea to sell worn panties online. They both find it vulgar, but isn’t it rather empowering in these times? Would Nova dear to use her cuteness for commerce? 



 Narration devices & multi-vocal narration approach


 The work involves multiple narration channels: Nova’s diary, a narrators voice over, dialogue, phone call, Breaking the Fourth Wall moment. This in order to accentuate different viewpoints and play with the audiences attention, jump through topics (as our mind jumps through the constant flow of information online)



 Characters:



 The characters are believable, typical contemporary millennials: on the one hand highly educated and privileged to a degree, on the other lacking the opportunities to find long-term housing, income, stability, etc. Precarity is here the key term.



 Nova (anthropology student), looking for a job
 Oliver (psychology student) working as a barista, trading online 
 Strangers: Neighbour, delivery man, scooter boy.
 Repetitive element: Phone screens
 



MOTIVATION * M U R K Y B U S I N E S S *
 


I believe, that one’s life, the all encompassing state of being is greatly commodified, and it makes people produce and buy vain objects and low value experiences. With the help of the internet, the production and hype-based environment creates arbitrary occupations, which serve only one aim — the monetary. We can’t call them completely aimless, rather fundamentally rooted in the capitalist system, profit rather than benefit. 
 
 This short film pictures the world where people are being forced into situations where they have to earn their living in a slightly edgy, sketchy ways. There is a sense of desperate quality, selling worthless things, selling fantasies: selling buyer’s own idea to themselves. This is an exaggerated comment on commodified realities.
 
 The extensive drive of people to gain more money constantly creates new ways of trading, which often are random; sometimes perverse, unsafe, illegal and dishonest (scam). Without questioning the value of the product, that is created by a hype around it, we’ve become a society of the spectacle: the content and the buyer of our own nullity (inferiority, rubbish).
 This surge of internet-based, improvised modes of production has transformed the product in means of content and accessibility. It also altered the buyer — the audience is now part of the performance too. Practices like drop-shipping and OnlyFans are perfect examples. There is no intention of moralizing or judging these unless we’re talking about an outright scam. For example, online sex work is as ethical as more traditional jobs, but is working for a fast fashion retailer or making commercials for multinational companies?