The idea that appealed to me the most came from me thinking back to my childhood shenanigans and my lift encounters as a child, where I got my hand caught in the lift doors and dropped a toy between the lift gap on separate occasions.
The Idea
The story revolves around a security guard stumbling across a child who dropped their toy down the elevator shaft. Seeing this the security guard remembers a time when they were young and lost their toy. He might not have dropped his toy down the elevator gap but the security guard has lost something in a similar fashion in the past. The story itself is quite simple, however I wanted to build the characters relationship through this flashback to hint a parallel story between the two characters.
Aesthetically, I looked at films and illustrations that gave off a nostalgic feel and reminded me of my home Hong Kong. While brainstorming I came back to this film that I loved called The Remedy 健憶舒心茶 by Zilai Feng. It is possible I was drawn to this film because I connected with the culture behind the film. The visual aspects of the film got me feeling really nostalgic as well. But it was a good starting point. Here are some other things I looked that had a really good vibe to it:
Some of the things from the board above doesn't follow the same themes but stood out to me the most. Mob Psycho 100 has a really loose style and saturated colours that I found very uplifting. I am also a big fan of the anime itself so I had to include this into my moodboard. During my research I came across this short called Tough by Jennifer Zheng. I love the colours and transitions in the film. The story itself was quite bittersweet but I found the story and the visual placements in the shots very inspiring.
For the flashback sequence I looked for something similar but quite different. Having this parallel storyline allows me to change the palette to my film, as though I am working on two films rather than one. I didn't want the flashback to be bleak so I decided to look into colourful works that would also remind the the audience the scene before them is a memory/a scene that doesn't go chronologically with the main storyline.
Here's a link to my pinterest board for some extra inspo:
Storyboard
While researching I slowly came up with a rough story where a boy drops his toy down the elevator gap and a security guard tries to retrieve it back for him when he sees the scene. Here is a storyboard I sketched up:
It starts with the boy trying to open this new toy (a gatchapon toy to be specific in this draft) he got while waiting for the lift to arrive but accidentally drops it down the lift gap as he enters the lift. We see him dropping the contents down the lift gap and him trying to reach down to look for what's lost. The story revolves around gatchapon toys and the security guard feels nostalgic seeing the scene and decides to help the child retrieve the toy back.
I wanted to use the gatchapon toy in this film because it was something I loved doing as a child and I really wanted to show it to the audience. But I don't know if everyone viewing the film would understand the significance of the gatchapon machines. So I might have to op that idea out and use a simpler toy design.
For the pitch I made a new opening sequence, in the first storyboard the security guard is at their desk and sees the child at the lobby. In this version the security guard sees all this unfold from his security cameras and runs to the lift to stop the kid from reaching down:
In the original version I have another storyline going on where you see the boy and his guardian with him when he drops the toy. He is forced to leave the scene quickly while the security guard sees this. The film pans out in the timeframe of a couple days. For this new one I've cut down all the other elements and stuck with the basic premise of the story.