The Boy Film Trailer Analysis

Cyberbully Poster Analysis

New group plot synopsis

GENRE: Social media

TARGET AUDIENCE: 15-20 year olds (Mainly female)

TODAYS FEARS: Social media is taking over and 17 year olds nowadays tend to put their life on Facebook, Twitter etc. Many teenage girls share the fears of having their image destroyed by someone on social media, knowing it’s undeletable.

 

In Abergavenny, sixth form students Sarah, Jake, Katie and Noah are best friends, living typical lives of 17 year olds. They spend both their social and school lives together, attending house parties and even sticking together during detentions after school. The friends are in a group chat, planning a night out for Noah’s 18^th birthday, making comments about how he’ll be getting served alcohol for the rest of them as they will still be underage. Typical of youngsters, they start discussing humorous drunken stories and send embarrassing photos of each other into the group chat which they all laugh about. The discussion continues and an ‘Anonymous’ user enters the group chat, however, the group are unaware of this.  Photos are shared on a Facebook page of Sarah and Jake holding hands and cuddling in public.  However, they’re unaware of this until Noah discovers them on an unusual account that had recently added him.  Noah sends the photos to the group chat and Sarah is embarrassed and accuses Jake of uploading them.  Jake denies it and the group become uncomfortable that someone has been taking photos of them and posting them online.

Minutes later, Sarah, Jake, Katie and Noah get an alert that someone has posted into the group chat.  Sarah opens the chat to find that the anonymous user that uploaded the image of her onto its Facebook page has somehow entered the chat and sent the group an image with a message saying ‘How’s the diet going, Katie?’.  Sarah clicks the image to see it clearly and discovers a print screen of an email to Katie from the local doctor’s surgery asking her to attend her next session at Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to talk about effective ways of treating her bulimia.  Katie had not yet discussed this issue with her friends as she was too embarrassed and didn’t want to know as an attention seeker.  The rest of the group open the chat and Katie posts a message, embarrassed, asking who this anonymous user is.

Jake immediately calls the group on a video conference call, they all answer to him asking what is going on.  Katie is upset by what seems to be her secret being released.  She explains her situation knowing her friends have her back and will help her through it.  Sarah kindly offers to attend her next therapy session with her and Katie agrees. 

An alert for the group chat then alarms, a recent video is received of Jake at a party with a girl who’s yet to be identified.  The video shows Jake stood outside of a bedroom and leading into, it also catches him talking to the female about how they can’t let his girlfriend, Sarah find out.  As the pair enters the bedroom a clear shot of Katie’s face is present and the video cuts off.  A second alert occurs with a message, ‘admit you cheated on Sarah with Katie, Jake.  Or the full video gets posted’.  The video call is silent and the user joins the call awaiting the truth.  Sarah is upset and shouting, “How could you both, with each other? My best friend, Jake. I was at that party with you all as well. Noah did you know”.  Noah was unaware that this happened and both Katie and Jake deny cheating, however, Katie knows that he is capable of cheating as he did so on his ex-girlfriend with her.  The anonymous user gives Jake a 5 second countdown to admit but doesn’t do so.  The video is then posted on social media for their classmates to see, this time an extended copy with full proof.  Sarah stays in the chat but disappears from the screen and is no longer speaking to Jake and Katie while Katie is in tears in the video call due to guilt.

Katie, Jake and Noah are still in the video call.  Katie is still upset and is shouting at Jake, “You said she wouldn’t find out!”  Noah interrupts, “Guys, calm down.  She’ll get over it”.  Jake states that Sarah is to stubborn to get over this.  A doorbell rings; Jakes head turns to hear a female voice talking to his mother.  Sarah angrily charges through his bedroom door, she stands over him shouting.  Realising that Katie and Noah are still on the video call she slams the laptop shut and slaps him.  Sarah leaves the room and Jake follows.  She walks out the house and down the path until Jake stops her and Noah and Katie arrive.  Noah and Jake try and calm Sarah down while she and Katie are arguing.  Noah slips up claims that everything that had happened was all meant to be a joke.  Sarah, only partially listening to what he said as she was still shouting at Katie, she shockingly questions Noah again.  He then admits he knew about the cheating but didn’t know how to tell her, he also intends that he knew about the video, not making it obvious that he was the one that took the video.  She then takes in Noah’s hints to find that he was the one who took the video of Jake and Katie.  It’s then silent and Sarah feels alone and betrayed by who she thought was her friends.

Silence breaks between the group and Katie begins to talk and says something familiar to what the anonymous user in the chat, “If no one talks in the next 10 seconds I’m going, this is pathetic.”  Sarah then focuses on what Katie said as the anonymous user said the same by giving Jake a countdown to admit he’s cheating.  Sarah’s suspicion gradually grows of Katie to then cause her to run back into Jakes house and into his room to his laptop.  Sarah scrolls through the chat to find the message from the anonymous user and finds a similarity to what she had recently said outside. Katie, Jake and Noah both run upstairs to find Sarah on Jakes laptop.  Sarah turn to them stood in the doorway and says “It’s you isn’t it?” aimed at Katie.  Katie tries to deny it’s her and questions why she would post stuff about herself.  Sarah slowly walks to her with her arms crossed and accuses her of being the anonymous user which makes her feel uncomfortable and she looks down at the floor.  Katie is still denying while Sarah keeps asking how why she did it.  Sarah attempts to get the truth out of her by accusing her of making up that she is bulimic to cover up that it’s actually her. Sarah then guilt trips the truth out of Katie by stating that Katie made her feel sorry for her just because she has a ‘dirty little secret’.  Katie then gives in to the lie and states that she does it because she’s jealous of Sarah because she’s the popular one and feels as if she’s in her shadow.  She’s jealous that she has a boyfriend and that it’s Jake because she wants to be with him.

From here on Sarah, Jake, Katie and Noah are no longer a group.  Noah and Jake are still good friends and Katie and Noah have minimal contact no and again.  Jake still tries to resolve the issues between Sarah and him in hope that they can get back together and forget about Katie who he tries to avoid.  As for Sarah and Katie, they have not spoken since that day and Sarah has deleted Katie off all types of social media.

Group plot synopsis

College leaver Sarah lives a typical life of an 18 year old.  She wakes up every morning at 6:30, gets ready and goes to work.  Ready to set off to university Sarah is excited to meet potential boyfriend, Jake along with future house mates Katie and Noah.  Meeting through their university social group online Sarah and Jake become fond of each other and they all plan their fresher’s week in a group chat.  .  After planning a fun filled week of partying and alcohol a strange unknown user joins their group chat claiming to be a student studying ‘Digital Games Production’ at the university they will attend.  The unknown user asks the four friends to try out a new game he has created for an important module on his course and claims that if and when it becomes profitable each player that test the game will receive 10% of the profit.  Sarah, Katie and Noah are interested in what the game is and want to try the game out however Jake doesn’t see it as a great idea and is yet to agree with the decision.  Jake discusses with Sarah away from the group his thoughts on testing the game out and how he doesn’t know whether he can trust the creator as they don’t know what the game is and if what he is saying is safe.  As Sarah convinces Jake that the idea is a bit of fun his affectionate feelings towards her forces him to gives in and he agrees to test the game along with the others.  After they all accept the challenge the game maker tells them they will receive an email to confirm they’re players.  Minutes pass and they’re yet to receive an e-mail, they begin to think it is all a joke but wonders how he joined their group chat without being added.   Sarah, Jake, Katie and Noah all forget about the game and carry-on planning their new beginnings in university.   As soon as the conversation dies down they all receive an email with an attachment to what they think will be the game that they hope to play. The email also states how to enter the game which will include clicking the link but the game maker has manipulated the players into thinking they will be playing the game online but they will be taken from their homes, almost like kidnapping and be taken to a games centre where the players will be unconscious and have a hat like device placed on their head which will then activate a virtual reality character of themselves that will be controlled by the players unconscious mind.  However, as soon as Sarah clicks the link her doorbell rings and she goes to answer it, not giving herself a chance to read the email.  Sarah then answers the door to find an unknown figure who knows her.  As of that moment she is unconscious.  Audience see’s the message in the link.

All four players are taken to the games centre where virtual reality head sets are placed on their heads.  They’re now in control of the game.  Their virtual reality characters are all placed inside of a gaming dome, however, the virtual reality headsets tricks them into thinking they’re at their own homes.  Sarah wakes up, gets up from her bed to open her curtains to find that nobody is around; however; there is an unusual large red arrow on the road.  Sarah goes back to her bed to find a note on her laptop.  The note reads that each player needs to follow the arrows to a field where they all meet to find a table with a map on.  The map reads the directions to the first challenges and games they have to play and succeed which will challenge their intellectual ability when playing the virtual game. Each game will determine whether a player will survive if they succeed at the challenge or if they fail to complete it in time.  The first challenge which will include cog direction will test their ability with hand and mind co-ordination, recognition, 3D movement and photographic memory. One of the ‘players’, Noah, failed at first hurdle. Because of this, the game maker rules him out and takes him out of the challenges and traps him in a cage due to them only wanting the most intelligent players to be left over. The rest of the players continue to play the game and follow the map after they have completed the first mind challenge. The players continue to follow the map into a wooded area, whereby they see the next challenge in front of them.  They continue to complete the challenges until they approach another that all the remaining players complete apart from Katie which causes her to be killed off by the game also taking trapped player, Noah with her. 

Sarah and Jake continue the game and follow the map to a wooded area to which they’re faced with what they thought was their last challenge, an unscrambling task. This task was to test their mathematic skills, for every number resembled a different letter. Set in an IT room, they both each unscrambled the numbers, working out that the sentence read, "You are the winner".  Sarah and Jake were timed 5 minutes to unscramble the encrypted numbers. They both finish with 0.1 second spare and they both think they're the winners of the game. They follow the map down to the field to collect their 'prize', the gate to the end of the game which proves to be a problem when they both discover that there can only be one winner. Taken back to a field where Sarah and Jake first met was a map. Following the ‘clues’ that were featured on this, they both find two guns with a note reading ‘Who will survive? You decide’. This situation is the fault of Sarah, who uses Jake’s intelligence and growing ‘lover’ for her throughout the whole game to get to the end of it, collecting her prize, which is not the 10% profits that the game maker agreed to give, but to meet the game maker for the very first time. Sarah, throughout game, wanted to complete it to get to the game maker who she claims to love and has been in contact with before she began talking to the others. However Jake oblivious to this puts Sarah before everything and ultimately wants Sarah to win because of his love for her.

However, there still needs to be a death of one of them in order for the other to win. The two players find themselves separating further apart from each other whilst holding a gun in their hands.  As they find a good distance apart, their faces become more distant to one another, making it less painful for Sarah to ultimately pull the trigger.  Both players arms rise with the guns locked in their hands when Jake breaks down, pointing the gun to his own head, revealing that he cannot live a life without Sarah, who he doesn’t know used him throughout the entire game. Sarah with a guilty conscience cries out “STOP!” before a gunshot fires.

All four players wake up from the game shocked and confused as to what happened to them.  As they come around they find a laptop in front of them showing how each member was killed in the game which they thought was reality. After watching the ending with Sarah and Jake she finds herself guilty about what she had done and is surprised by what Jake had done for her. She had then come to realise that someone who is prepared to put her before everyone and everything, has helped her to realise that in fact, she loves Jake. Sarah never meets the game maker; she lives a life in university happily with Jake, however still scarred by their experiences of the game.