My project is about body image, and the way women compare themselves to others and the desire to physically change yourself to please the people around us. I want to create a character the audience will sympathise with and a situation that presents what most women feel due to beauty standards. I want to show what goes on in the woman's mind and how sometimes we get so tired of the way we look to the point we want to change everything about ourselves. I will be creating a short film about a beautiful girl that doesn't see that she's beautiful. It will start with the girl getting out of bed and walking into the bathroom about to get ready to start the day. She looks at herself in the mirror and touches her face in disappointment, she squeezes her eyes shut wishing she didn't look the way she does. We are then transported into another room, dim lit with a single full body mirror in view. She walks in the room and stands in front of the mirror, where she begins take her clothes off. She looks at herself in her underwear completely

disgusted with herself. She then begins to cut off the fat on her body and sucks out the grease with a syringe to distribute to other parts of her. She does this while crying in pain and in anger. The final outcome is the girl completely botched, so horrific and unreal that it's almost cartoon- like. She cries even more and squeezes her eyes shut horrified at what she's done to herself. She slowly opens her eyes and stares back at herself in the mirror, she's her normal self and she's completely happy and content with that.

  There are two options I have come up with as she performs self surgery on herself, the first option is very realistic and gruesome. When she cuts her skin and sucks the fat out from her body she is covered in blood. The raw fat that she removes from herself will be referenced from real life liposuction. With this option, the video will come across very dark and the message this conveys has more of a chance of being controversial. The second option is vibrant colours oozing out and dripping from her body. The 'grease' she sucks out from her body is glitter. This would represent inner beauty. I am currently conducting more experiments and thinking about what my target audience would like to see. But due to the short notice the second idea came about, I couldn't fully document it into this portfolio. I have researched the human body internally and externally to create the character in a realistic way. I've done research on real life images of cosmetic surgery, liposuction and raw fat, and i've looked at the first plastic surgeries during the first World War. I have looked into multiple different artists that have created works on body image and self image. I have experimented with fruit to try to create raw fat as accurately as possible for my first option as well as experimented with glitter for the second option. For the final video outcome, it's extremely important to me that I find the right performer. The acting needs to portray the seriousness of the topic. I managed to find a performer that I know will perform this piece well enough. She's a first year HMUPP student with theatre and acting background. In regards to the video, I have done some experimentation on how I would like the lighting and what kind of music I am looking for. This is shown in my video submission. I want to do this because I feel that it is a very relevant topic that women, and men, have struggled with for a very long time and continue to struggle with. Society and the woman's body have the worst relationship. Society is constantly telling the world what is beautiful and what is not, and if you don't look a certain way you should feel bad about it and change yourself. My concept/idea is very personal to me, and i'm sure, very personal to others. I've struggled my whole life to love myself, and it's still not easy. I am the girl that looks at herself in the mirror and wants to cut off and suck out every inch of fat from my body, i've always wanted to get a nose job and get my lips filled. But i'm slowly learning that it's unnecessary and we don't need to be ashamed of ourselves. That we should love ourselves. The research i've done so far that suggested this would be a good idea are the women around me. My friends, my sister, my mom.. They all constantly talk about what they hate about their appearance and what they would like to change. I have work colleagues that always have something new done to their faces whether it's getting their jawlines shaved or their ear lobes reduced. Cosmetic surgery has been so normalised, no one looks like themselves anymore. Body image has always been a relevant topic but even more so now due to the popularity of cosmetic surgery. Women and men start going under the knife as young as 16, not even fully developed humans. I want to create something that can somehow convince those with low self confidence to not be ashamed of themselves. There's a difference between people that get cosmetic surgery because they believe it to be beautiful and the ones that want plastic surgery to change for others. This is for those who feel bad about themselves due to

the people around them.