Forte.

Forte.

The story of Georgia Mae Hudson overcoming her anxiety disorder as she finds her true self in playing the piano and seeks to help others with the disorder.

Story By: Nicole Hoskins

E-mail: nhoskins@sthildas.qld.edu.au

Blog: sthnhoskinsftvnm.blogspot.com 

GEORGIA MAE HUDSON is an only child living a normal high school life in Richmond, Australia. She is a very quiet person and has only one true friend, Ally Deyes. One day, Georgia is informed that she has social anxiety disorder and this wakes her up and motivates her to overcome it. Her deep passion for playing the piano this helps her do so. 

MISS BELLE is Georgia’s piano teacher. She encourages Georgia as she is her best student and pushes her to her fullest potential. Miss Belle has high expectations and is a very good role-model to Georgia, despite the fact that Georgia’s mother sometimes thinks otherwise.

MRS HUDSON is Georgia’s mother and is very protective of Georgia. She doesn’t have a husband and this makes her even more worried about her daughter. She only wants her Georgia to be safe and within her comfort zone, but later realises Georgia must do what is best for her.

PLOT SUMMARY

The stereotypical shy high school girl, Georgia Mae Hudson, faces ultimate battles with herself after she is informed that she has social anxiety disorder. Her overprotective mother is concerned to the point that she doesn’t want Georgia to do anything out of her comfort zone. Yet, Georgia is confident in tackling the disorder and with the help of her piano teacher, Miss Belle, she overcomes it. Georgia encounters many obstacles along the way such as the school talent show, her mother’s doubt, and her self doubt. As she becomes stronger, her aim is to assist those who have the disorder and become apart of the elite Julliard Music School.

TREATMENT

Blackness. Narrator, Georgia, says “I’ve always been a quiet person.” Georgia walks through school carrying books. Another girl hands out flyers, promoting school talent show. She extends the flyer to Georgia. Georgia gives an awkward smile. “No thanks” she mumbles and rushes away. Georgia narrates “I knew there was something holding me back. I thought I was just shy, I didn’t think it was anything serious.” Fades to black and lady doctor sitting at a desk appears. Mother is in a chair, Georgia sitting beside her looking down. Sounds of suspenseful violins crescendoes as Doctor tells them Georgia has social anxiety disorder. Violins stop as voice-over says “And that was where it all started.” 

Series of fast pace shots appears of Georgia playing piano in Miss Belle’s office, as it cuts to doctor asking her questions. The piano is playing over the two scenes. A series of events are shown when Georgia had failed to present piano pieces in public as mother says “She can play alright but… she refuses to play in public… of course. She’s too shy.” Piano teacher says encouraging words to Georgia, and insists she enters the school talent show. Georgia gives a disapproving look. 

A slow heart beat is heard as Georgia walks in slow-motion to the stage. Papers are slammed onto the table as Georgia’s mother yells at her about her grades lowering. Mothers voice fades as heart beat sounds get louder. Georgia is seen on stage, her hand shaking, she runs off. Writing appears “A girl whose chances were low…” “…achieves the incredible.” Montage of Georgia playing “River Flows In You” in different practise areas. Mother is seen and heard raising her voice at Miss Belle about distracting Georgia from school work. Writing reads “Music saved her.” “She will save many.” Georgia says “There are thousands of people out there who started out just like me. I want them to know they are capable of anything they put their mind to.” Mother washes dishes and says “You’ve got mail, its on the table.” Georgia picks up the letter and nervously says “It’s from Julliard…”

Writing reads title “Forte.” Best friend, Ally Deyes, nudges Georgia while in the audience. Boy is looking at them. Ally says “That’s Phil. He’s a cellist.” She smirks. Georgia glances back at him quickly and looks down smiling a little embarrassed. Writing reads: “COMING SOON” “Directed by Nicole Hoskins”

Storyboard Planning

Before I complete the storyboard for my trailer, I wrote up a table including all of the scenes and this helped me decide which shots are the most important and are worthy to put into my storyboard. This is because I do not have time to write a storyboard for every single one of the shots I am putting into my trailer. This method helps me pick out the necessary shots to put into my storyboard.

	Scene	Storyboards Needed	Shots
1	School Talent Show Promotion	2	Walking through school & rejecting flyer
2	Doctors App.	2	Doctor at desk & mother and Georgia sitting down
3	Piano Lesson with Miss Belle	2	Close up of hands & Miss Belle’s face
4	Georgia’s Failing Stages	1	On stage, frozen
5	Home- Georgia’s mother yelling at her	2	Slamming paper & over shoulder shot of mother yelling at Georgia
6	Piano Lesson - Georgia’s mother having a word with Miss Belle	2	Med-long of both characters & mother’s face
7	Receiving Julliard Letter	2	Washing dishes/Georgia picking letter up & Georgia’s faces seeing the letter
8	In Audience, Seeing Phil	1	Ally and Georgia seated

Due to my bad maths calculations, I had realised that I had 2 shots too many. So I decided to remove the sixth scene.

Treatment Reflection

Before I hand in my final treatment, I had encountered a few things that I needed to fix.

Changing the tense to the present. The treatment has to be written like a visual story that is happening in the present. With enough description for the reader to understand and visualise it but not too much depth that it leaves room for imagination.

At first, I had written a very descriptive treatment. It was about 400 words over and it was very important for me to cut down on words to be within the word limit of 300-400 words. This was challenge for me having to choose which sections are less important then others and having to delete some of my very creative descriptions. A positive of this though, is that I have a very clear idea of what I want my trailer to look like.

Mr Andrews helped me with my treatment with verbal conferencing. Some things he pointed out were:

• Making the sentences flow is important. I can do this by combining sentences and there are many occasions where I could do this.
• I need to include more shots of the ordeal/difficult tasks throughout the trailer, including more shots of Georgia's anxiety beating her down on stage.
• I should read it out loud and make some slight changes of wording. By doing this, I can correct more issues of flow.

Forte. Treatment Draft

Forte Treatment

Blackness. Narrator, Georgia, says “I’ve always been a quiet person.” 

Georgia walks through school carrying books. Another girl hands out flyers, promoting school talent show. She extends the flyer to Georgia. Georgia gives an awkward smile. “No thanks” she mumbles & rushes away.

Georgia narrates “I knew there was something holding me back. I thought I was just shy, I didn’t think it was anything serious.” 

Fades to black & lady doctor sitting at a desk appears. Mother is in a chair, Georgia sitting beside her looking down. Sounds of suspenseful violins crescendoes. Doctor says tells them Georgia has social anxiety disorder. Violins stop. Voice narrator “And that was where it all started.” 

Georgia plays fast piano piece in piano teacher’s office, Miss Belle. Cut back to doctor’s office. Doctor asks what she likes to do to release stress/anxiety. Georgia still plays piano in Miss Belle’s office. Cut back to doctors appointment. Georgia says “I like to play piano.” Back to piano teacher’s office. Georgia finishes the piece & looks to Miss Belle for approval. Miss Belle says “Beautiful. As always.”

Cut to mother at the doctor’s appointment. She says “She can play alright but… she refuses to play in public… of course. She’s too shy.” 

Cut to piano teacher, she says very encouraging words to Georgia, Georgia gives a disapproving look. 

Heart beat sound effects. Slo-mo shot of Georgia walking up to the stage.

Mother slams paper onto a table as she yells at Georgia about her grades lowering. Mothers voice fades as heart beat sounds get louder. Cut back to Georgia on stage, her hand shaking, she runs off.

Writing appears “A girl whose chances were low…” “…achieves the incredible”

Montage of Georgia playing “River Flows In You” in different practise areas.

Mother is seen & heard raising her voice at Miss Belle about distracting Georgia from her school work.

Black screen with white writing that reads “Music saved her.” “She will save many.”

Georgia is saying “There are thousands of people out there who started out just like me. I want them to know they are capable of anything they put their mind to.”

Mother is washing dishes & says blankly “You’ve got mail, its on the table.” Georgia excitedly holds up the letter and shouts “I got into Julliard!”

Georgia & Ally are laying down outside looking a the stars. 

Writing reads “Forte.”

Best friend, Ally Deyes, nudges Georgia while in the audience. Boy is looking at them. Ally says “That’s Phil. He’s a cellist.” She smirks. Georgia glances back at him quickly & looks down smiling a little embarrassed.

Writing reads:

“COMING SOON”

“Directed by Nicole Hoskins”

Reflection 2 on Trailer Task

Some issues that I have encountered so far with the production preparations for my trailer are:

• Difficulty of recruiting a boy for a part. As I go to an all girls school, I know a very limited number of boys and this makes it extremely difficult to organise a film trailer knowing that I won't have anyone to play a certain part. I had visioned that one of my classmates dresses as a boy but that would create unnecessary humour in a serious situation. I'm still not sure how to fix this problem.
• Because my trailer is about a girl who becomes a big performer, an obvious element needed is an audience. As I am not a professional director, I do not have money to hire or have access to a large number of extras to create an audience. But, the twilight concert and house plays are coming up very soon, so I thought that a good idea would be to take advantage of that and use the genuine audience and film them (as a whole) from a few different angles and hopefully I will incorporate that into my final trailer.
• Time management has been a minor issue for me with this task so far. Not in the sense that I haven't utilised my in-class time to do work, but for the future. The rough edit is due next Friday and I haven't started filming. I need to make sure I create a schedule and stick to it because I had this exact problem in my last filming assessment task.

Light and Electricity Safety

Before we handle large technical lights and equipment, we were to read some documents on how to be safe around electricity as it could be very harmful if used incorrectly. Things to be extra cautious with are:

• Light bulbs
• Extension cords
• Boom boxes
• Soft box lights
• Power outlets 

Reflection 1 on Trailer Task

Reflection on Hero's Journey Storyline

I previously had The Talent Show as my big reward for the Hero. The problem with this is that the reward is not big enough and also it is a selfish achievement. What I had decided to do is keep the talent show but that is only one of the many tests she encounters. My hero, Georgia will audition for Julliard and get accepted. She also selflessly raises awareness of anxiety disorders and this is what she does to help other people.

I also recently had an issue with school uniform and country setting for my trailer. I had thought we weren't allowed to include our school uniform in our trailers and I was worried because my move trailer is set in an Australian school. If I were to get the characters to wear free dress they would either have to be at university or at an American school and none of those two settings suit my storyline. Mr Andrews told me last lesson that we, in fact, are allowed to have our school uniform of our trailers and I felt relieved as this is what I'll be doing in my trailer.