Short Film:

You Were Perfect and I’m Sorry

By Billi Bushell

Production Deadline: Friday 27th May

Final Deadline: Friday 10th June
 Raindance Film Festival

The Raindance Film Festival accepts UK and International submissions from

producers and filmmakers. It is taking place in Leicester Square, London in
Autumn 2022. The aim of the festival is to display the best of new cinema from
around the world, especially from first-time directors. The first ever Raindance
event took place in April of 1992 and the first ever festival was held in October
1993. Submissions are reviewed and selected based on their production quality
and the winners of the festival will get an InkTip Script Listing to promote
themselves and their script sent to the entire network of managers agents and
producers.

Categories:

- Feature Films (over 45 mins)

- Short films (under 45 mins)
- Music videos (under 6 minutes)
- Narrative features
- Documentary features
- Music Documentary features
- Animation features
- Queer features
- Virtual and Augmented Reality Experiences (under 120 mins)

Deadlines and Dates:

- Early deadline: 11th April 2022 (£55 feature film, £25 short film)
- Regular deadline: 9th May 2022 (£70 feature film, £35 short film)
- Late deadline: 13th June 2022 (£100 feature film, £50 short film)

Submissions are submitted on FilmFreeway and must be paid for by card. Once
the film is submitted there are no refunds and, on the 15th September 2022,
people will find out whether or not their film has been entered into the
competition or not. Successful submissions will receive a Filmmaker Festival
Pack that contains a variety of information on things such as press and publicity,
guests, contact information and more.

Final Idea
For my final idea I would like to make a short film about sapphic romance and
how despite how in media sapphic relationships are seen as ‘easier’ than
heterosexual romances they can face a lot of the same issues. The film won’t
focus on queer struggles directly and instead focus on the actual relationship as
there are far too many LGBT films in media that are only based around
homophobia.

The film in question will be about two girls, Juno and Lizzie, who have been in
a long-term relationship for years as they were the first two girls in their year to
ever actually come out as queer, so it made sense for them to get together. At
first, they are shown to be the perfect couple, but soon small cracks start to
show.

The final straw is when Lizzie finds a picture of her girlfriend looking very
cuddly with a girl in the pocket of Juno’s coat. The picture in question appears
to be from a party that Lizzie had no knowledge of Juno ever attending. She
soon finds out that the party was the same night that Juno had claimed her pet
fish had died and she was too sad to go on the cinema date the two of them had
originally planned to go on.

Confused and heartbroken, Lizzie doesn’t know what to do. Part of her is angry
at the thought of Juno cheating on her and wants to confront her but the other
part of her is terrified of losing one of the only people who has been there for
her through everything.

As she’s staring at the photo, Lizzie gets a phone call from Juno. Juno asks if
she left her coat at Lizzie’s house to which Lizzie responds yes. She doesn’t tell
Juno about the photo, mostly out of fear. She feels as though saying it out loud,
putting it into the universe, will just make it all too real.

That night, Lizzie goes to bed with the picture in her hands, wondering if she’s
just overthinking it all. Eventually, she decides to text her friends and ask what
they think, they advise her to talk to Juno about it.

The next day, when Juno comes to collect her coat, Lizzie finally confronts her.
When she shows Juno the photo, at first, Juno tries to deny anything, saying it
was just a platonic friend of hers, but eventually she gives in and explains the
truth.

She tells Lizzie how she feels trapped in their relationship, how she wanted to
break up a long time ago, but she couldn’t because she didn’t want to lose her
best friend. She talks about how the two of them only really got together
because they were the two gay girls in their year at school. She explains how
she met the other girl, Kat, at that party and how they had been seeing each
other ever since.

At first, Lizzie is hurt, but as Juno apologises for everything and explains her
perspective, Lizzie realises that she has felt the same way. The only reason the
two of them got together was because it just made sense. Sure, she had liked
Juno at first, but as time went on the two became more like best friends than
girlfriends.

Soon, the two of them settle on being friends and Juno promises not to keep any
more secrets from Lizzie and then right at the end, Juno introduces Lizzie to a
new girl.

Rules and Regulations

1. Submission Deadlines
- Early deadline: 11th April 2022 (£55 feature film, £25 short film)
- Regular deadline: 9th May 2022 (£70 feature film, £35 short film)
- Late deadline: 13th June 2022 (£100 feature film, £50 short film)

2. Submission Format
Films must be submitted via online screener, Changing or updating the
originally submitted link is not allowed. Only one version of the film will be
reviewed by programmers.

3. Submission Eligibility
- All submissions must have been completed after 1st January 2021.
- There isn’t a premiere policy for short films and music videos.
- They accept work-in-progress films.

4. Premiere Status
-There is no premiere policy for short films and music videos, they may have
screened at other Festivals and/or online.

5. Film Classification
- All films screened during the Raindance Film Festival receive a blank 18
certificate from Westminster Council (London). This means they are not
allowed to accept anyone underage during any screening of the Festival.

6. Submission Fee
- All submissions for Raindance are to be paid through FilmFreeway platform.
The submission fee is non-refundable.

7. Selection of Films
Submissions are reviewed and selected under the following criteria:
- Quality of narrative and production values.
- Independent nature of the production.

8. Notification
- Raindance tries hard to finish the selection process by 15 September 2022 and
inform everyone who submitted, in writing, if their film has been successful or
not after that time.

9. Scheduling - for selected films ONLY

- Whilst every effort will be made to follow the schedule, Raindance have the
right to make changes at any time. Raindance will not be liable for any costs
claimed as a result of a change in scheduling.
- No film may be withdrawn from the festival programme after its selection.

10. Promotion – for selected films ONLY

- Selected films must acknowledge that Raindance can promote the films on
Raindance website and social media using both images and video that you
provide.
11. Festival Awards
- Jury prizes for Short Films: Best Short, Best Documentary Short, Best
Animation Short, Best UK Short.
- If shortlisted for a Jury prize the online screeners of the film must be made
available for the duration of the festival for all the jury members.

My Target Audience
For this project my target audience will be teenagers between the ages of 13-17.
For this I have sent out a survey to some teenagers to find out their hobbies and
interests. This way, I can help to make my characters more relatable to
teenagers as they can have similar hobbies and interests to the ones on my
survey results.

From my survey I managed to gather enough information to help me to create

relatable and interesting characters. A lot of the people in my survey said that
they play some kind of musical instrument so in my short film I will try to
include something to do with the characters playing an instrument.

The teenagers that answered my survey also told me that a lot of them enjoy
going out on picnic or going to the cinema with their friend. I can use this
information in my film by having the two main characters go on a picnic
together because it is clear that that is an activity that a lot of teenagers enjoy
doing.

Legal and Ethical Issues

Since my film is about members of the LGBTQ+ community, I will make sure
to present them in a way that isn’t offensive. There are a lot of harmful and rude
stereotypes surrounding lesbian/Sapphic relationships and it is important that I
avoid including those. I will make sure that my characters are believable and
relatable without using stereotypes that can come across offensive towards the
Sapphic community.

I will also have to avoid using any copyrighted music and instead I will have to
find copy-right free music to ensure that there are no legal issues in regards to
the music I will include in my production. To do this, I will likely look on
YouTube for copyright free music and credit the artist if I do end up using their
songs in my film.

Production Schedule
Week – April 4th

Day Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

Plan of Unit intro Proposal, Research

Action and idea schedule & competition
generation research and brief &
weekly blog

Week 2 – April 11th

Day Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

Plan of
Action

Week – April 18tk

 Day Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

Plan of
Action

Week – April 25th

Day Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

Plan of Research Research Target Target

Action audience audience
& weekly
blog

Week – May 2nd

Day Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

Plan of Characters Auditions Practical Practical

Action for actors test shoots test
shoots &
weekly
blog
Week – May 9th

Day Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

Plan of Script Script & Story Storyboards

Action character boards & weekly
profiles blogs

Week – May 16th

Day Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

Plan of Filming Filming filming Filming

Action & weekly
blog

Week – May 23rd

Day Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

Plan of Filming Filming editing Final

Action and and production
editing editing due date &
weekly
 blog

Week – May 30th

Day Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

Plan of
Action

Week – June 6th

Day Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

Plan of Pitch to Pitch to Pitch to Evaluation Final

Action focus focus focus & weekly Submission
groups groups groups and blog
evaluation