Detailed narrative idea

Name: Into Thin Air

Genre: Psychological Thriller/Teen movie

Genre and codes and conventions.

Teen movie:

(Altman) Semantic elements : Cliques of friends, stereotypes, social hierarchy, high school or home setting, alchohol, drugs, sex, partying, smoking. 

Syntactic elements: Conflict between students and adults, relationship problems, conflict between cliques, 'new girl' attends high school.  

Psychological thriller 

(Altman) Semantic elements: Low key lighting, mirrors and stairs in order to create confusion, shadows, urban and moderns setting. Normal day to day costumes in order to create realism, effects used in order to disorientate the audience. 

Syntactic elements: conflict between people, an ending that ties all loose ends together, or a ending that gives the audience something to think about, detailed storyline, conspiracys, and manipulation. 

Detailed narrative outline beginning: 

News reports of many missing young girls are shown to us. The plot starts with a grieving young girl of 18 years who is called Ebony , she is moving from the home town in which she was born and raised in order to move away from the memories of her best friend who has gone missing. We see Ebony's mum speaking to her in a very concerned way as she swiftly shoves their bags into the car, leaving the very temporary rented flat that the two have been living in and teh two of the go from this town into thin air. Because this is the year she starts university she is moving away from her mum to now experience living on her own, unaware clearly of the concerns that her mother has for her.  She starts her new college/university and begins a placement in a mental institute as this is the area she is hoping to carry on her career in. During her placement the girl goes about day to day things admin, organising and greeting patients in order to gather some experience. She is settling down at this point in the film, we are still  unaware as an audience of where this story will lead. Ebony struggles to make any friends in her early experience of university, where some students will be drinking and partying she spends her nights going over memories of her best friend. 

Detailed narrative outline middle:

One morning Ebony wakes up from a nightmare about the night that her bestfriend had gone missing and we see the truth that actually this girl had played a part in her friend going missing. We see flashbacks and throughout this whole day Ebony is taunted with images of her best friend, she sees her friends reflection in mirrors, and the friendship bracelets that they used to share. At first the audience will believe this is just dreams that Ebony is having. Ebony soon makes friends with people in the same placement and classes at school and the one friend Ebony becomes particularly fond of is Janet, we don't see Janets face we only hear about Janet in Ebony's diary. The next morning Ebony is woken by her mum coming to visit her at university, which is a plesant surpirse as she hasn't lived away from her before. Ebony introduces Janet to her mum and to the audience, and her mum and the audience will be in shock as Janet looks like Ebony's past best friend who has gone missing. Her mum looks at her with  a baffled look as she can not comprehend the resemblance. She takes Ebony aside and questions her 'why is this happening again?' 'i have trusted you'. Ebony simply was drawn to this girl because she looks like her missing best friend. As the story progresses not only does Ebony carry on having hallucinations of her old best friend but the girl she has got to know now is involved in some of the sick fantasys that Ebony has. Dreams and nightmares of whatt Ebony would do to Janet(in an agressive way).

Detailed narrative ending:

Whilst the hallucinations of Ebonys old best friend are now taking over her mind, the narractive point of view for the audience is now distorted as Ebony is no longer seeing Janet but her old best friend in Janet. In the mental institute Janet approaches Ebony in a distressed way, when she turns Ebony to face her , her face is full of anger and fear as she calls Janet Poppy. Janet is confused and goes to get help by calling Ebony's mum, when Ebony takes her by the neck and drags her with her. Ebony sits with Janets head over her lap and talks about how Poppy has hurt her and why she has had to do this. When Ebony's mum arrives Janets body is in a bed in the mental institute, Ebony looks at her mum with terror in her eyes as she is confused as to why she has done this. Ebonys mum attempts to escape with her when instead they are caught by security after the disturbance is noted by other students. Ebony is taken away and we see her thoughts unveil and reveal the truth about what iis wrong with her. The terrible experiance that she  went through when she was a child was her best friend Poppy convincing Ebony to assist Poppy in her suicide. Ebony feels as though she is to blame for what happened. As a result of this she experiances schizophrenia and any close relation with people leads her to act out and hallucinate about her old best friend. Towards the end of the story we see Ebony being held in a prisoned mental institute. When her mother returns to say goodbye to her daughter Ebony has gone into thin air. She is not to be found .

Theorists

Strauss:My narrative has  elements of any binary opposites, we are presented with a good character who means well however her mental state is quite clearly distorted.  In this narrative the binary opposite good vs evil has been used. Ebony being the evil character and Janet and all of Ebony's victims who haven't actually done anything to deserve what is  coming to them are the good characters. There is also the binary opposite of sanity vs insanity. Ebonys mum, and Janet also the other characters that we are not fully introduced to such as students and lecturers and people who work in the mental institute are people who are represented as being sane. Ebony is presented as being insane, her character is what makes up the narrative point of view so therefore we see things from her perspective, what we see throughout the film may not always be the reality because of her mental state and the hallucinations etc that she has. 
Propp: In this narrative there are key characters. You could consider security who are resolving the situation as hero's. Ebony is presented to the audience as the typical character type of a villain, we could argue that her mental disroder is the evil side to her because throughout the film we see that this character does not actually have an aim to kill people. There is the character type of teens also represented in the film because these are students drinking, partying, forming different friendship groups which are all semantic elements of teens in films. 
Todorov: 1. The equilibrium of this film is the girl moving away from her hometown, because she wants to settle after something traumatic has happened in her life. 2. The disruption of this is that even though she has moved away she is still seeing her friends face, she is still having nightmares and flashbacks about her best friend which suggests to us that moving somewhere else has not actually helped the problem. 3. The realisation, this is where we see that Janet is in danger.  4. Restored order, the truth is revealed to the audience about Ebony's problem and her past, we learn who the girl is that we have seen from her hallucinations.. 5. False Equilibrium, Ebony has been taken to a prisoned mental institute, we think that now eveyrhting is over when Ebony's mum goes to visit her she has gone into thin air, so Ebony is now missing which leaves the story at different state to what it started as. 

Theorits continued

Neale: In terms of Neales theory this film in my opinion would be a film that stretches the boundaries which is the third stage of Steve neales genre evolution theory. I think that this film would fit in with stretching the boundaries, due to the fact it is teen based so therefore unlike most psychological thrillers there will be a younger audience where as the typical audience for this genre is usually much wider and aimed more at adults because the storylines of these type of films can quite commonly be more complex. Because it is teen based and focuses more on a female based audience it could appeal to a more female audience which also stretches the boundaries because this is not a typical convention of psychological thrillers. Another reason why i think this film plot fits with this statement is also because it is focused a lot more on violence and fear than typical psychological thrillers. This film would also stretch the boundaries of typical teen movies, by joining these two genres i have almost created a different sub-genre. Teen movies are usually widely focused on stereotypes, drinking, sex, conflict with adults and this film stretches the boundaries of this by going further and being more in the mind of a student.

Altman: There are very recognisable semantic and syntactic element features in this film, which relate to the theorist Altman who beleives that these two elements make up a film. There will be semantic elements from both genres firsly the psychological thriller genre, there will be elements such as props used this will be mirrors and reflections in order to create confusion for the audience. Low key lighting and shadows will be used throughout the film especially in tense scenes in order to create a more eerie ambience. I have chosen an urban setting to present realism to the audience, and the costumes in which they wear will benefit to the setting of the film. The semantic elements used from teen movies are drinking and partying (other students at the school , social hierarchys of 'cool kids' and the not so cool people are pushed aside. Ebony is an example of someone lower down in the social hierarchy because she is socially awkward.  Syntactic elements have been used from both genres, conflict with parents, all loose ends are tied at the finish of the film, relationship problems also arise between friendships etc. 

Main Characters 

Ebony: She is a  female, middle class and 18 years old attending university now. This is the main protagonist, this character is who is experiancing a mental disorder. We see the plot from this characters point of view which means that we as an audience see the characters distorted reality. The costumes that she wears would be very casual, she is a pretty character however she cares little for her appearence unlike typical teenage girls who care a lot for their appaearence. She would wear quite skaterish clothes, and costumes suited to her placement in the mental institute too. Because of her mental state she is different to other students at her university, excluding herself from the everyday situations that stereotypical teens would take part in.  

Janet: This is also a female, middle class and 18 years of age also attending the univeristy that Ebony is too. She is in the same placement as Ebony, and they share similar interests. She has a very natural and pretty look about her and this character is supposed to look a lot like Ebony's older friend Poppy. In order to make the storyline seem  like this is a reocurring coincidence for Ebony . Similar to Ebonys character she would challenge typical stereotypes of teens by preffering to stay in, not taking part in regular drinking and partys like the other teens at university. This character is who is unknowingly wrapped into Ebony's disorder, she is portrayed as a victim throughout, and trys to grasp an understanding of Ebony's thoughts. 

Ebony's mum: This character is the mother of Ebony a single mum, and we could assume that this is because Ebony and  the things she has done is too much for her father to deal with. Her mother has taken on her secrets and because Ebony is not completely with what is happening all of the time her mum is almost a guide for her. She makes the thoughtless decision to leave her to a normal envrionment this is what leads to the disruption in this plot. She too is a female, middle aged, devoted to her child which is why they both manage to escape into thin air because her mother helps her a lot. Because she is a middle aged women she would have different interests and responsibilitys that the two other main characters would have. She has the responsibility of looking after her child, keeping her safe, she is trying to prevent anyone from finding out about her daughters problems. Her costume would be slightly unfashionable as this is a typical stereotype of middle aged parents, being uncool and out of fashion. Also because she is a single mother and devoted to looking after her childs health she would not care too much for her appearence as she would not have the time to care about this type of thing. 

Locations

The main location used for this film would be a school/university setting with 'halls' which are university rooms. A lot of the film would be in Ebony's room looking at her thoughts and this would be when she writes her diary. Other settings would be other peoples room seeing the comparison of the other teens life while they are out partying compared to Ebony who sits in her room alone. The other location which would be used is the mental institute for Ebony and Janet's placement, this is an area in which the university specialises in so therefore the placement is very close to campuss. Other places where this could film could be located is the flat in which Ebony and her mum leave. Which would be represnted as a very temporary living place to emphasise the fact that they are always on the run. Props that could be used is firstly a diary in order to really get Ebony's thoughts across from the audience due to the fact we will be seeing the film in her point of view. A get away car would be featured at the start in order to show the hurry they are in.