ANALYSIS OF THE STORY 


The Void is a short film expanding on the idea for the living of the main character but the story is quite complex and it has been designed in a way to intrigue the viewer and not be confusing at the same time. One of the mistakes that I am doing is creating complex stories and losing the end of the narrative, it does not matter if it is a character and purpose or the scene narrative itself.  That is why I decided to write down the story as I will do it on paper. 

When I am discussing my project with the others, I can see how confused they are, because I cannot describe the actual story, I can describe to them what the story is about, what it is in the core concept, and what influences the narrative. My favourite director of all times 'Quentin Tarantino' talked about what it is to be a director and how he starts his productions, and he shared in an interview that he sees the actual scenes and the movie before he starts doing anything. I can say, that, the same thing happened to me. I planned this project for 6 months before starting it and for most of the scenes, I knew how to describe them, how they are in my head, and what will be the whole mood of the film. 

Writing a story and script for a short film is different by itself from the feature film because you need to summarise a lot of information and present it visually in a way that will make it easy for the viewer to go through the storyline and dialogue, and understand the concept. It is really hard to summarise information, it takes practice, time and skills. 



The Prologue 

The starting of the story is in City 57, where we are having the main character - Helena, we can observe how she is being created artificially and being brought to this world alone. The introduction of the futuristic city in dark, green lighting itself creates a dangerous and mysterious mood, that is almost disturbing. As the city is being shown, we observe at the same time the creation of Helena which are two opposites - the city is crushing souls and spirits because of the lifestyle, and at the same time, a new life is being born. It does not matter if she is a robot, or human, or half of them each, she is having thoughts and she is the main narrator. 

She is knowing her purpose and the viewer will know it because they are going to listen to the dialogue of her thoughts. 



I The dream 

After introducing the main character and the whole set, mood, colour, it is time to start the journey. Now Helena is part of the world and she is the observer, the child that starts to explore and is too curious to have a good outcome of its decisions. She is analysing everything around her, and the scene with the window shows the melancholy that is part of the emotions of the character, our main persona is so lonely, she needs to be free and communicate with herself. Now we see the craving for change. 

She is falling asleep on a rooftop, the place from where she can observe without being observed, like a god type of scene. Helena is having a dream about herself going to a strange place called the Memories Fields. There she sees herself and starts stalking herself, but she is curious to see if she can find the answer to her curiosity. Later in the Storyboard, it can be seen the difference in the clothing. Her present self is in black clothes, her other self is in white light clothes - later on in the story you will be able to see the foreshadowing and that the reason why she is in white clothing is that she is the future Helena, trying to reach out to her old self and make her wake up from the real world, that means the mentality of Helena as a character itself shows how selfish she is, trying to help herself, but at the same time the city, society and era made her this way, they designed her to care only for herself. 



II Memories to connect 

This is the first denoument in the story. Helena saw the dream earlier, and now she is thinking about escaping. The scene is being acted in a white room with one char, a door and two robot guards. The first shot will be aimed at her face because here she is sitting in the chair emotionless. But why she is emotionless? It is because the environment she is forced to exist in is pressing her to behave in this way. And as every person who is at a standstill in their life, she is craving for change and the only way to do it is to start moving forward. The following shots are showing how she gets up, walks towards the door, open it and walk even further. After waking, even more, she is imagining a key - what the key represents are her intentions and changed personality traits, now she is confident in herself about escaping and wants freedom from everyone. 



III Claustrophobic night in the city 

This scene is showing how Helena is escaping from the facility she is in and starts running around the city, meaning she is being chased by the guards. That represents rebellious behaviour, insanity, breaking the rules, stopping pleasing others and starting thinking about your goals and how to break the system. That does not mean she is still happy.

The robots want to shut her down because she is now a thinking robot, almost like a human. They are part of the higher forces which are creating other artificial intelligence robots like Helena and using them only for one purpose that most of the time is including a lot of violence. Impulsive behaviour is breaking the chain and society does not like it. 



IV Physical Catastrophe 

Helena escapes the guards and walks into a dark room full of mirrors. The very interesting thing about films is that mirrors are having a very interesting meaning. Mirrors are used for moments of reflection, showing how the emotional reflects the physical, the obliviously, these are the positive examples. The negative examples are that mirrors can also be used for contrast and comparison, distortion, delusion, emotional breakdowns. 

The connection between Helena and the mirrors is that the scene shows the duality of her persona. The scene is called Physical Catastrophe because here our main character connects with nature and rips out the technology. She is walking towards the mirrors beaning she is ready to see her true self and decide if she will accept it or not. She is also looking at herself in the mirror and sees the files that she dreamt about, she is seeing herself and how her body is being disassembled in the reflection. Now she sees her true self and realises that she has been born destroyed and lonely. 

The scene is continuous with the mirrors, her and only 3 lights surrounding these objects and creating a focus only on what is happening with them. When Helena closes her eyes, she is in the fields realising she is dressed in white clothes now. In the dream from scene II, she is the one with the black clothes meaning she had not yet grown up enough, but now she is on the other side. When she turns around she sees her old self reaching to her but now she tells her to wake up. 

First of all, when she closes her eyes before imagining the fields means she is in a state of mind where she is dreaming, she is dreaming again. It is not only a dream because now the physical does not matter. We are not going to see these environments again, now it is time to show nature. 



V I am the villain 

This scene is very important because it supports the ending. Helena is going through an emotional crisis and here she is accepting herself the way she is. She lets go of all the pain and suffering. What happens in this scene is that she is dying, really dying. I tried to write it and present it visually in the most beautiful and not disturbing way because as long as I want to show some real thoughts, not everyone will be able to accept them, not everyone will be comfortable with this topic and there are even very sensitive people who can be traumatised by this. So, I used my imagination on maximum to express what is happening here. 

Helena is falling in the middle of the fields because of the overwhelming emotions, she just falls in the grass. Now the timing is really important here, the time is before sunset. Helena has been in her pieck and as now she falls unconscious, all the natural flow has stopped - for example, there is no breeze, no birds and everything is silent.  

The flowers around her have formed a crown around her head - I am referencing the film 'Midsommar', because an analysis considering the film scene in the film shows ''The mix of yellow, blue, red, pink, and green flowers are symbolic of controlled chaos in which Dani ultimately asserts dominance over herself and her surroundings. She no longer sacrifices herself for the love of others, but instead embraces a newfound love for herself.''. The same thing is happening here, with our main character. She is happy, the nature is happy for her because in this cycle everything comes to an end. 

''The flowers around her formed a crown over her head, representing the sun. She is so happy to be out of this shell, out of the prison called a body. The sunset comes and the beautiful forest has been set to sleep after the traumatic event.'', part of the story and the particular scene are already giving the answer for the crown. After Helena's loss, we see nature and the stars, all welcoming her as part of them and start having the same flow as before like nothing ever happened, because it is natural.  



VI The end of life /Memorial/

This is the part where I am introducing Helena's inner world. The scene beggings with how she is in the place called The Ethereal forest and there she is standing in front of the lake she was dreaming how she drowns in. Helena is quietly observing what is happening here, she is thinking about the grass, the sky, the stars (it is nighttime) and how everything is so dark, but she is dressed in white, which creates a very good contrast on how she accepted her faith, she is pure and with her inner self. 

The water in the film is being used at first for rendering dual reality and shocking the viewer, as part of a scene, the water represents the matter of meaning to human desires, dreams and secrets and also elicits a sense of fear. Most of the time represents emotions such as sadness even if we include the blue colour that also is being connected to this conclusion. 

Helena is going inside the water where she is being greeted by several statues with ruined faces because the human physical body doesn't matter. The ritual is very sacred because, she as a soul is having her secrets and desires, imagination and opinion.  As she is walking towards the statues, the texture of the water is becoming red representing the blood. Here, we are not going to emphasize it because, as I said earlier, people are being disturbed by this.


Helena falls on her knees and opens her hands towards the sky. Simply, this means she is ready and safe. There is no fear anymore. 



VII The void 

This is the final scene which is called ''The void'' because here I will show through visual presentation and dialogue what is the void.  

After spreading her hands towards the sky, she teleports to a place where the energy is very pure, high and peaceful.  She is in the void, the state of mind where she simply needs to be and show her true colours. The artificial intelligence is standing in front of a lot of statues representing different creatures she dreamt about a long ago, she can see how they are full of destroyed mechanisms and particles. On top of these statues, she sees herself as a statue of white porcelain. Now we confront the character for the last time because she needs to let go of the past before reincarnation. The red tears on the statues' faces represent the pain and suffering. 

''Then she touched herself on the chest and her bloody hand left a small mark. And her eyes were full of black tears. Her face was numb and black crystal particles surrounded her.'', this part of the story means that she is intoxicated with all the trauma of the city and life, and needs to be in peace with herself.  The particles represent whenever she was sad. 

The final part of the scene is how Helena is having a black crown on her head, black tears and she is actually on the floor. Then flashbacks from the scene with the flower crown in the fields are coming. Why I am comparing these scenes. In the end, she is smiling, she is free from the trauma, sadness and dark energy. In the scene with the flowers, she is smiling because her body is not part of her anymore. It means, she is detaching herself from the lower vibrant energy and materialism because she wants to be free and be her higher self. This is the reason for her escaping too.