We decided that our storyline would be more effective if Sarah was given the lucky penny as a child. We decided to alter her age, as it would convey a more effective passage of time for our plot. We decided that it would make more sense for Sarah to have grown up, as coin collecting with her Grandma would have been something she would have done as a child, rather than as a teenager.
In addition, we also decided to change the events that highlight how lucky Sarah was. For example, we believed it would make more sense to extend the narrative around the lucky events, to help the audience understand the impact of the events. We also made sure to have frequent shots of Sarah holding the penny, so that the audience would understand its importance. For instance, Sarah places the penny in her coat pocket and takes Kandi for a walk. Despite letting go of Kandi's lead, so finds her because of the penny. Similarly, her phone breaks, but it miraculously fixes. We extended this part of the narrative and introduced shots of her holding the penny to ensure that the audience understood that the penny was bringing her the luck.
Another alteration we made to the story was the introduction of Leah as Sarah's best friend, which we felt was more appropriate due to our film wanting to target younger as well as older women. Because a best-friend stealing would affect a woman of any age, we believed that having the best-friend assume this role would create a much larger impact than a boyfriend, due to the "best-friend" importance amongst females. And because of this, the audience are more likely to sympathise with Sarah, which is what we want.
We also decided to introduce a flashback at the end of film, in order to make sure the audience fully understands the events that have taken place. For instance, the flashback allows us to tie up all loose ends of the film, making it a closed narrative, as everything is explained by Sarah when she realises. We think this is much more effective, because we didn't want the audience to be left confused by the storyline and the importance/impact of the penny. As we believe the flashback avoids this problem. However, we didn't want Sarah to explain too much, and not leave the audience without any questions. We decided to end it with Sarah slamming the penny down on the drawers. This leaves the audience guessing where what will happen to their friendship and will Sarah continue to be lucky, or has the penny fulfilled its duty?
