Zoë Frank and Devin Brady
Like Me Treatment
Narrative Structure:
- As generations become more accepting of diverse ideals, people of all ages are molding their own definitions of what love, romance, and dating means for them. Traveling to such locations as parks, bars, a couples therapy class, and a retirement home, Like Me investigates the varying definitions of love from the perspectives of four different age groups. While focusing on these four main age groups (children, young adults, middle aged adults, and seniors), Like Me will also incorporate several Vox Pop interviews that range widely in age, social class, and geography. Using a participatory method to guide the story, each member of the crew will figure out their own definitions of love, and will conclude the film by sharing their findings. During interviews, we will try to ascertain the different generational views on love and the struggles that each generation faces.
Cinematic Characters:
- Zoë Frank: Director and host of Like Me.
- Devin Brady: Producer and host of Like Me.
- Children: Several kindergarten aged children from a variety of households (single moms, divorced parents, traditional). A mixture of gender and social classes will provide a well-rounded view of what children believe about love and relationships. Children will express the most basic ideas about love, providing the framework for more complex definitions.
- Young Adults: Interviews with ages ranging from teenagers (sixteen years) to twenty-five year olds. This age group is the apex of hormonal love and lust, a segment of the broader topic--love. This is also usually the most confusing age for love, and will add conflict and drama to our film.
- Middle-Aged Adults: Interviews will vary according to relationship status and social class (single, married, newly married, divorced). Middle aged adults are stereotypically seen as the most knowledgeable and experienced age group to define what love really means. Like Me will show the truth and the faults in this theory.
- Seniors: Unlike most cultures in the world, America doesn’t usually give credit to the older generation as being the wisest. Like Me will change this perception, giving our elders a chance to speak their mind on love and romance.
Story Conflict and Challenges:
- Young adults and the drama they face in high school/college relationships
- Social class barriers that affect love and relationships
- Marital issues and the plethora of divorcees
- Lost abilities and family members due to age in the senior interviews
- Children’s struggles with divorced parents (travel, quality parental time, siblings split up)
Sequence Possibilities:
- Animations as transitions between interviews of different age groups.
- Vox Pop interviews of people standing in line at Starbucks, Hardee’s, bars and restaurants downtown, and youth athletics, asking them about love with a 10 second timer.
- A newlywed couple that speaks about the honeymoon phase of love (b-roll of wedding photos).
- The innocent interaction between a little boy and girl playing together.
- The interactions in high school romances (leaving at the end of the school day, in the cafeteria, in between classes).
- Seniors interacting in a group home (playing bingo, flirting, calling their children, talking about their loved ones who have passed).
- College kids at frat parties (dancing, drinking, playing games, flirting, texting)
- College kids out at a (possibly hipster) bar
- The group dynamics in couples therapy; one specific couple and their opinions and reactions to therapy...its effect on their relationship
- Isolating the divorced interviewee in the attempt to portray moments of love lost in their new homes/apartment.
Visual Style Decisions:
- Like Me uses animations to transition from each age group. The animation sketches will evolve from simplistic stick figure visuals to more complex illustrations.
- Filming the children, the color scheme will imply light-heartedness, bright colors, outdoor settings, mimicking cartoon style.
- The young adult interviews will acquire a darker tone, implying the complexity of the emotions and the anxiety at this age. Darker lit settings such as parties and bars will provide high contrast to the bright and cartoonish images of the prior childrens’ interviews.
- The middle aged interviews will be shot with a pastel palette in mind, giving the sense that they have matured and calmed from the young adult years.
- Senior interviews will consist of more neutral colors to emphasize their age and comfortability with themselves and lives.
- The participatory mode will involve separate interviews with the crew, against a white background, in response to the interviews of the other characters, similar to reality television set-ups
- The hosts will introduce each age group, and then will switch to close ups of each interviewee--almost being used as an establishing shot. This will let the viewer know that the hosts are still there and are the only constant characters in the film.
- Interviews will consist of mainly close ups along with animations that visualize their definitions.
