Although we wanted to keep an original storyline - which we have - we also looked into similar films in the drama and fantasy genre in order to develop our storyline.
Just My Luck (2006) -
Ashley is an extremely lucky girl. However, after meeting Jake, the polar opposite, their luck is swapped. Jake gains Ashley's luck and Ashley becomes terribly unlucky.
We took a lot of inspiration from Just My Luck, as the film revolves around the lucky theme. It focuses on the idea of two different extremes of fortune, lucky and unlucky. Ashley starts off lucky, but loses her fortune to Jake, and has terrible luck. We developed on this idea in our short film, instead of the characters swapping roles and their luck, Sarah just experiences lucky events that are encompassed in bad luck. In Just My Luck, Ashley and Jake kiss, therefore swapping their fortunes around. However, in our film Sarah just perceives her events as unlucky, however at no point does anyone else obtain this luck from her. Just My Luck provided us further inspiration for our film in terms of our 'good' luck events and 'bad' luck events. In Just My Luck, Ashley wins money on her scratch card, has a successful job and dates good looking men. Jake's bad luck results in him stepping in a puddle, ripping his trousers and getting arrested. When their luck swaps Ashley rips her dress, breaks her shoe and chokes on an olive. Jake's good fortune comes in his band been recognised, getting a new apartment and his band, McFly, getting a gig. We took inspiration from this in our scenes where Sarah becomes unlucky. She loses Kandy, loses her Ipod and her mum accuses her of stealing £20. Another element that we took inspiration from in the film, was the conclusion. At the end of Just My Luck, Ashley and Jake learn that the luck was irrelevant, and their better without it. We decided to play on this, in our short film we want Sarah's luck to help her realise the bad luck that her friend, Leah is giving her. Instead of her giving up her good fortune, it continues in solving problems that are important to her, rather than the idea that her time is up with the luck. We don't portray whether this luck ends of whether it continues, however we know that she doesn't willingly give it up.
Anna was born to save her leukemia suffering sister, Kate. However, Anna has had enough and fights against her parents using her body to save her sister.
When thinking about our opening credits we took inspiration from My Sister's Keeper. We wanted to put our opening credits within a 'flashback' or 'retrospective' scene, in order to conserve time and create a more effective opening. We researched into flashbacks and found My Sister's Keeper's opening was similar to what we had planned. In My Sister's Keeper there is a 'flashback' in the opening credits/title sequence, it incorporates background information with the title sequence which provides the audience with knowledge about the story before it starts so this doesn't need to be shown during the film, and so the audience understands. This is the idea that we developed when looking at our short film. We decided to have a 'flashback' of Sarah and her grandmother, whilst displaying our title sequence/credits. We wanted to provide our audience with knowledge about how Sarah got the lucky penny, who gave her it, and how it is lucky. This is an effective way in showing this as it allows us to target two elements in a shorter space of time.
16 Wishes (2010) -
Abby has a list of 16 wishes for her 16th Birthday. A fairy comes and gives her some candles, and when Abby blows out each candle her wish comes true from that wish.
We took inspiration from 16 Wishes in terms of the moral message behind the story. In 16 Wishes she learns the errors of her ways, and realises that you shouldn't wish for materialistic things, you should be happy with your life. We took inspiration from this idea, as we decided to let our main character, Sarah come to a realisation at the end of our film. We wanted to make sure that our main character doesn't become obsessed with good fortune the penny brings, instead we wanted her to realise the problems in her life, eg. her friend and resolve this, but not depend on the luck from the penny.
Millions (2004) -
In addition, inspiration for our title sequence also came from a film we'd researched. In Millions, two boys find a bag full of pounds days before the currency is changed to Euros. The battle between morals and desires, they have to decide what to do with the cash. We took inspiration from the scene where the two boys count the money. They throw it up into the air. We took inspiration from this in terms of our opening title sequence, where we want to have falling money on the screen. However, in order to maintain our originality, we want to have pennies falling instead of notes as this would match our theme better, and stick to the idea.
