Storyboard

After completing our storyboard, myself and Jess questioned whether the audience would know that Sarah has a heart problem.  This is a key fact that we need to introduce to the audience, because when she see's Brett after she has been told the news of his death, she suffers from a heart attack.  We researched different medicines that she could be taking, and saw that people take Nitroglycerin when a heart attack is suspected.  When Sarah is making Richards a cup of tea, we will have a medium close up of Sarah rubbing her chest, as if in pain, cut to a close up of the tablet bottle, and then a medium close-up of Sarah secretly taking a couple of tablets.

We also wanted to establish that Richards and Brett both commute to their work in London.  Instead of beginning with the long shot of the tree, we will instead shoot a sequence showing Richard's journey home from London.  (We will put this in our shot list).

Plot Summary

'Story of an Hour' shows the rollercoaster of emotions that Sarah Mallard goes through at the discovery of her husbands death.  A modern, film adaptation of Kate Chopin's 18th Century short story. 

A woman in a modern world, yet still in the chains of pre-suffragette Britain.  She struggles to come to terms with her loss, yet realises the freedom that this will bring her.  But will she suffer from the joys that kill?

Final Script

Story of an Hour

Scene 1

We see a man, Richards walking down a street. He stops at the house he is looking for, looks up at the window and then walks to the door. He rings the door bell and waits. He backs away from the door and looks around the surrounding environment. Cut to a figure making her way down the last few steps of the staircase. She walks towards the door. She stops. On the table next to the front door there is a picture frame turned down. She picks it up and puts it upright on the table. It is a picture of Sarah and her husband Brett on their honeymoon. Brett is smiling and enjoying his holiday, Sarah's smile is forced. She reaches for the door handle. She faces the figure before her. He's dressed in a black suit, and is holding a briefcase in one hand and a newspaper in the other. Sarah is confused by his visit.

Sarah: Richards?

Richards turns round to see Sarah Mallard at the door. His face is grave. He struggles to greet her with a warm smile. Instead it looks forced and fake.

Richards: Can I come in?

Sarah doesn't answer. She stands back away from the door, letting Richards walk through. She closes the door, and follows him through to the kitchen. She puts the kettle on and then sits opposite him.

Richards is fiddling with the lock on his briefcase, picking at the lock. Sarah is holding her shaky hands in her lap, turning her wedding ring around her finger. Richards looks up at Sarah every few seconds, hoping that she will start the conversation. He sighs, takes a deep breath, and pulls his hands away from his briefcase, shifting his body so that his whole attention is on Sarah. He leans forward to address her.

Richards: How are you?

Sarah notices that he has started a conversation, and pulls her gaze away from her wedding ring. She looks up at Richards, yet finds it hard to hold his gaze.

Sarah: Okay.

She pulls away from his worried, searching gaze and looks back at her wedding ring. Richards sighs as she does, concerned about her well-being.

Richards: Good. (He nods once and turns back to his briefcase, and continues to pick at the lock.)

There is a silent pause. Richards looks around the room awkwardly. All the audience hears is Sarah tapping her finger nails on the table, Richards picking at his lock and the kettle boiling. The three sounds climax until the kettle boils. Sarah goes to make the tea. Richards, now that he doesn't have to deliver the news to her face, builds the confidence to break the news.

Richards: I'm sorry. I went to wait for Brett's train. I waited for an hour. Sarah... Sarah, the train never arrived. Brett never arrived.

Richards waits for a reaction. Sarah doesn't react, and continues to make the tea. Her actions are shaky and quick paced. Once she has got everything ready (milk, sugar), she orders them on the counter.

Apparently some kids were playing a game, Some sick game. They put a log on the tracks. The train collided and... I'm sorry.

Long pause. Sarah's movements have become more shaky and quick. Whilst pouring the water she overflows the pot, and spills the water on her hand. Sarah curses under her breath. Richards gets up quickly to help her.

Richards: Let me help you.

Sarah pulls away from Richards help, backing away from him.

Sarah: No. I'm fine.

Sarah makes her way from the hall way, and up the stairs.

Scene 2

Sarah makes her way up the stairs. She walks into her room, and slowly shuts the door. There is a large armchair placed in front of the window. She stands in front of it and then sinks slowly into it. She sits, staring outside the window. A tear slowly rolls down her face. She quickly wipes it away. Her expression shows her exhaustion, her stress. She has aged and looks years older than her actual age. She sits motionless. We see two birds flying past her window. They sit on the nearest tree by the window. Sarah looks at them in envy, jealousy. After some time she throws her head back, resting on the top of the chair.

She lifts her head again, slowly. A sudden realisation comes across her face. Looking out the window at the birds again. She slowly rises, and walks over to look out the window, and rests her head against the glass. She continues to watch the birds. She smiles, a gleam of life coming back to her eyes.

Sarah: Free. Mind, body and soul. Free.

A knock from her bedroom door. We hear Richards, call from the other side of the door.

Richard: Sarah? Sarah, open the door! Please, open the door – you're going to make yourself ill. What are you doing? Sarah? (To himself) For fuck sake. Open the door!

Sarah: I'm not making myself ill.

Richards keeps on shouting through the door. Sarah stays at the window. Smiles. A tear comes to her eye. She looks excited. “Drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window. She turns away from the window, and opens the door to find Richards on his knees. She grabs Richards' arm and starts to drag her down the stairs.

Sarah: Pub?

Sarah has reached the bottom of the stairs. She goes into the kitchen, grabs her coat from the back of the stairs, and goes to the table at the side of the front door. She grabs her keys.

Richards: What? Sarah...

Sarah: Come on.

Richards: Sarah, wait....

At that moment Richards is interrupted by the sound of a key entering a lock. All freeze. They turn to face the front door. Sarah backs away towards the staircase to support herself. She looks scared, shocked. Fear overwhelms her.

We see a figure step through the door, we do not see his face yet. Richards looks happy, overjoyed.

Sarah: (screams) No!

We now see Brett walk through the doorway, shocked, confused at the outburst.

Condensing the Text

Because we need to condense an hour into 5 minutes, we cut down the text, and left only the important visuals/ideas that we want to create. 

Purple - Visual/action

Green - Dialogue

Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.........

She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.

There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.

She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life....

There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.

She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.

She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.

There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully....she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.

Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will--as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.

She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and grey and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.

"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.

Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhold, imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door--you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door."

"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.

Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.

She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs.

 

Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.

When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills.