My first feature script is called Dolly Daydream (2019). The genre is a mystery, crime drama/thriller set in England in 1964. The feature-length script focuses on Katie’s strained relationship with her Mother, Claire. When Katie misbehaves at her fifteenth birthday party, her Mother sends her to an all-girls boarding school to learn how to behave like a ‘proper young lady’ and hopes that it will improve their relationship. However, Arnold Hemingworth, the headmaster of West Side Academy, enforces strict rules over his pupils. Katie’s reluctance to follow these rules gets her into trouble and isolates her from the other girls at the Academy. One of these rules includes that the girls will have no contact with their family members unless given permission to do so. Nonetheless, Arnold allows one girl at a time to visit her family members if she is well behaved and conforms to the rules. However, Katie finds out that the girls are not going home and are being drugged by Arnold so that he can turn them into life-sized dolls to resemble his deceased daughter.
The World of the Story
I created a mood board to gather some visual references for what I wanted Dolly Daydream to look like.
Link to mood board: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/natashalangridgethorpe/dolly-daydream/
The story is set in 1964, England. I chose the 1960s because I found through my research that there was less security in comparison to the security measures today. The 1960s was a time of limited communication and I decided that Arnold exploits this idea by isolating the girls from their families. In this scene, when a girl can speak to her family members it is seen as a privilege and not common courtesy:
Not being able to communicate with your loved ones whenever you want adds to the theme of entrapment. For example, Katie is physically trapped at West Side Academy as a commentary towards a wider context of social entrapment within traditional gender roles. My reasoning behind this was to raise awareness of how unhealthy the idea of traditional gender roles can be since they place limitations and expectations on how a person should behave. As a result, my script aims to challenge the stereotypical gender roles of the time by commenting on the idea that a woman’s passivity can lead to her degradation.
In my first draft, Katie escapes from her bedroom by using a hairpin to unlock the door. She grabs Millicent from detention, and they witness Arnold throwing girls into his van.
However, I decided in my final draft that when Katie uses the hairpin that it does not work and that she must find another way to escape. Thus, this shows that Katie is dissimilar to her Mother and showcases her as an independent female who uses her own initiative. I think that by Katie resorting to a difficult method that could potentially injure her, illustrates her determination to stop Arnold from harming the other girls.
I wanted the West Side Academy building to reflect the idea of an outdated ideology. Therefore, as a reference model, I chose Carey Mansion: a French Renaissance revival style building. In this sense, Arnold’s environment reveals that he is stuck in the past, not only with his value of traditional gender roles but also when he is dealing with the loss of his daughter.
The Stepford Wives (1975) and Get Out (2017) illustrate photographs as a source of capturing memories. By using photographs, the main characters are getting a snapshot of a point in time that they will not be able to relive. I thought that this symbolism would make sense in the world of Dolly Daydream because Arnold clings to his memories of Annabelle and strives to capture her likeness.
In my first draft, it was central to me that Katie could sympathise with Annabelle as a character through visual references. I also wanted her to have some deeper context as to why Arnold was doing this and his relationship with his daughter. Therefore, I made the decision to show Arnold’s memories of Annabelle through an old television screen that Katie could watch.
However, as I continued my research, I discovered that domestic video cameras were not very accessible in the 1960s. To make the scene fit with the time period, I decided to change the video camera to a slide projector that would show photographs of Annabelle. I thought that the pictures on the slide projector could suggest to Katie and the audience what happened to Annabelle without the need for unnecessary dialogue. I also thought that the mechanical sound of the projector, when combined with Annabelle’s singing, would add to the eerily tone of the scene.
Characters
Katie Croxton
Katie is the protagonist who drives the story and plays an active role against Arnold, the main antagonist. She is fifteen years old and is raised by her Mother. She is attached to a vintage dollhouse that her Father gave to her as a present before he passed away, despite being told that she is too old to play with dolls. Her Mother wants her to behave like a ‘proper young lady’ despite her reluctance.
Katie is a rebellious character who does not fit in both at home and at West Side Academy, which results in her defensive nature. It was important to me that Katie was in the position of an outsider looking in since she is judged for not conforming to the guidelines that society has set out for her as a female. One of the references that I used for Katie’s character was Joanna from The Stepford Wives (1975). Joanna is portrayed as an intelligent character who has a rebellious nature to her, yet she shows a vulnerability that makes her a three-dimensional character. One of the scenes that I used as a reference shows Joanna expressing her feelings to her therapist about the men trying to change her and other women.
The Stepford Wives (1975) (Watch clip from 1:36:47 - 1:38:16):
Joanna tells her therapist that she will be a different woman when she sees her again: “She won’t be me, she’ll be like one of those robots in Disneyland”. This bears similarities to the loss of the identity that the girls have once they become dolls in Dolly Daydream. Katie’s self-respect for her own identity presents her as an empowered female who refuses to be chained down by the rules that are set out for her. Characters like Joanna and Katie are ostracised from the society that they live in, yet they do not attempt to conform and actively fight against it. In a society in which people force their ideologies upon others, Dolly Daydream comments on the idea of having respect for yourself and standing up for what you believe in despite criticism from others.
Additionally, another character reference that I used was the character Lydia from The Falling (2014). Lydia rebels against the headmistress at her school and tries to publicly question her in assembly.
Link to The Falling (2014) (Watch clip from 1:22:40 - 1:23:16): http://m4ufree.tv/watch-idty-the-falling-2014-movie-online-free-m4ufree.html
Lydia tells her fellow students “Kill the system, it’s killing you!” and takes a direct stance against her school. Since West Side Academy is corrupted like Lydia’s school, this scene inspired me to show Katie interrogating Arnold in front of everyone. In my first draft, Katie was originally thirteen years old and she tells Arnold what she has found out about him.
Upon reflection of the progress review and some feedback on my first draft of the script, I decided to change Katie and Millicent’s ages from thirteen to fifteen. This was mainly based on the mature way in which the characters speak to each other and the actions that these girls decided to take against other characters and each other. However, I still wanted the girls to be vulnerable teenagers who would still be in the process of discovering themselves. I thought that the way Katie chose to confront Arnold in the first draft made her seem overly confident and in turn, made him seem like less of a threat to her. Therefore, I wanted her to be initially unwilling to confront him because she is scared. Like Lydia, she is furious at the way she is being treated. Nonetheless, she remains frightened of the man in charge.
Katie’s status as a loner could be debated since she explores West Side Academy with the audience. Through my research into the mystery genre, I discovered that the audience usually maintains an intimate relationship with the protagonist by staying with them throughout the story. One of the scenes in which I wanted the audience to connect with Katie on an emotional level is when she overhears Arnold talking to her Mother on the phone. Knowing that she cannot speak to her causes Katie to have a breakdown in the middle of the corridor and shows her vulnerability as a fifteen-year-old girl who wants to see her Mother.
Arnold Hemingworth
Arnold is the antagonist who has a career as a plastic surgeon and a headmaster. He reveals that his wife, Mary, passed away due to an illness in which she could not cope with the loss of her daughter. Arnold grieves Annabelle in an unconventional way and plans to create a perfect replica of her. To create a replica, he wants to turn his existing students into life-sized dolls that he can consistently work on to look like Annabelle.
Arnold is shown to be a well-respected member within his community. For instance, Claire and Beatrice show a great deal of respect for him at Katie’s birthday party due to his assistance as a plastic surgeon. It was important to me that Arnold had a calm and charismatic demeanour about him so that he could gain people’s trust. He manages to gain the trust of Claire by suggesting that her relationship with her daughter will improve if she sends her to West Side Academy. A character reference that I have for Arnold comes from The Stepford Wives (1975). The character of Diz Coba is the mastermind behind the Men’s Association. Like Arnold, when Joanna finds out about Diz Coba’s plans, he retains his pride and composure.
The Stepford Wives (1975) (Watch clip from 1:45:30 - 1:46:55):
Arnold maintains a sense of self-control throughout Dolly Daydream, including when he is caught by both Beatrice and Katie. The reasoning behind this is because, like Diz Coba, Arnold embodies the power that hegemonic masculinity can have over women. In this way, their characters represent the cultural idealised form of manhood that justifies the subordination of women. Like the power and status that Diz Coba has as president of the Men’s Association, Arnold has this power and status through his role as headmaster.
In my first draft, Arnold tries to strangle Katie when he catches her looking at the drawings in his office.
I originally wrote this as a suggestion of Arnold’s hidden anger. However, after reviewing the scene, I decided that the idea of Arnold strangling Katie at this moment caused the immediate shift in tone that I had wanted to gradually build up throughout the story. As a character that has a calm demeanor, I wanted his actions to be a lot more understated at this point in the story. In my final draft, I wanted Arnold to physically grab Katie in a way that would frighten her, but not in a way that shows a lack of self-control.
However, Arnold begins to act more aggressively towards the end of the story to show that his tranquil exterior is starting to crack. He shows a lack of self-control when Katie mentions Annabelle’s death.
Millicent Bennett
Conversely, Katie’s binary opposite is her roommate, Millicent Bennett. Unlike Katie, Millicent conforms to the ideology of the traditional, feminine female. She is first shown as an antagonist, who later becomes a supporting character to Katie.
One of my character references for Millicent comes from a book trailer for Bad to Cursed (2011).
From this trailer, I focused on the piece of dialogue “try to behave like someone is always watching you”. The fifth West Side rule, like the trailer, talks about behaving like you are being watched since the girls are taught to care about their appearance. In the trailer, Zendaya talks about being a member of The Sunshine Club. Similarly, Millicent goes through the rules about being a West Side girl.
In my first draft, Millicent is introduced through a cut scene which shows her getting ready for school while Arnold’s voice-over talks about West Side Academy. I wanted to introduce her in this way to show her immediate attachment to West Side Academy and to show how much pride she takes in the way she physically presents herself.
However, in my final draft, I wanted the audience to form a deeper connection with Katie and not be distracted by Millicent through the cut scenes. I decided that Millicent should be introduced through Katie’s eyes so that the audience can see her how Katie would.
By fixing this scene, I was able to fix another issue I had been having with the montage sequence. I originally decided to inter-cut between Millicent and the girls giving Katie an unwanted makeover with Arnold giving a life-sized doll a makeover in his house.
However, I thought that using this scene as the first reference to the life-sized dolls could confuse the audience into thinking that the doll scene is happening in Katie’s head and not in real time. As a result, I chose to switch Arnold’s previous voice-over that was originally inter-cut with Millicent getting ready, to the voice-over inter-cutting with scenes of him getting the doll ready. I thought that this change was less confusing for the audience to follow.
Millicent is a hyper-feminine girl who is an abusive relationship with the hyper-masculine Arnold. However, Millicent does not realise she is in an abusive relationship until she escapes West Side Academy. She recognises through her journey with Katie that she is not supposed to be treated in such a way. I wanted to show how unhealthy a relationship can be when extreme gender stereotypes are present. For instance, when Millicent questions Arnold’s intentions, he resorts to physical violence and reprimands her for questioning him. This is harmful to Millicent’s development as a female because she is not taught to be independent or assertive when speaking to authority figures.
Beatrice Partridge
Beatrice is a supporting character who is first introduced as Claire and Arnold’s friend. She is Katie’s form room teacher and school counselor who she forms a close bond with.
One of the references that I used for Beatrice is Sister Cathy from The Keepers (2017).
I focused on the way her past students described her: “Sister Cathy exemplified this spirit of passion and kindness”. Regarding this, I wanted Beatrice to be a person in authority that Katie feels like she can trust. Unfortunately, Beatrice is quick to disregard Katie’s suspicions due to her overriding respect for Arnold. However, she understands that Katie’s suspicions are not unfounded after she sees Arnold grabbing Katie in an inappropriate manner. Katie and the audience find out that Beatrice’s respect for Arnold is not only due to their past friendship, but also that he helped her find a job after her ex-husband left her with no money:
The Mother-Daughter Relationship
The relationship between Claire and Katie is the overarching plot in Dolly Daydream. Although Katie’s objective at West Side Academy is to stop Arnold from harming the girls, it is her continuous goal for her Mother to accept her for who she is. A reference that I had for the dynamic between Claire and Katie comes from a scene in The Falling (2014). In which Lydia’s relationship with her Mother is tainted because her Mother refuses to listen to her.
Link to The Falling (2014) (Watch clip from 1:19:21 - 1:19:38):
“Have you got any idea what it’s like? Having you as a Mother?!” Lydia shouts at her Mother, who puts the hairdryer on to drown out her daughter’s voice. Like Lydia’s mother, Claire does not listen to Katie about not throwing her a birthday party which immediately causes friction between the two of them. I wanted to show what an impact the exaggerated gender stereotypes within society can have on family relationships in which Claire expects her daughter to adhere to the same feminine stereotypes as herself. However, by attempting to persuade her daughter to act like her version of a ‘proper young lady’, she damages the possibility of a positive relationship between the two of them.
The final scene from The Falling (2014) shows Lydia and her Mother physically and emotionally embracing each other. Their body language speaks for them when they embrace which makes up for their lack of dialogue. When I implemented the physical gesture in Dolly Daydream, I wanted to show the contrast in their relationship dynamic from the start of the film to the end.
