Mirrors and Mannequins (working title)

Normal mannequin and plus sized mannequin:



This is the basic plot of my idea so far: (UPDATED as of 7/10/08)

The setting of the story is a warehouse. A large wooden box is delivered to the warehouse by handtruck and left in the center of the room. The camera has been close to the ground so far so that you can only see the feet and legs of the delivery man as it follows him to the center of the room. When the delivery man leaves, most of the lights are turned off except for one spotlight on the box. The camera zooms out a little bit but remains close to the ground so that the shot is framed by the legs of the mannequins in the warehouse. A plus sized mannequin steps out of the box and starts to look around. She walks up to a mannequin directly in front of her and looks it over. She then walks along the row of mannequins and you can see their reflections in the large mirror along the wall. She begins to realize she's different from the others. At the end of the row she sees a knife lying on the ground. She picks it up and walks over to face the mirror. She begins to whittle pieces of herself away so that she can look like the others. The whittling visibly causes her pain but she becomes addicted to the immediate results she sees in the mirror. Eventually she whittles herself away so much that her limbs become like toothpicks and her legs start to shake under her. She falls down on one knee but her reflection remains standing and looks intact. However, the plus-sized mannequin is still not satisfied with her reflection and realizes that the only way she can truly be like the others is to cut off her head. She does so and her body crumbles to the ground. The camera then moves away from filming only the reflections of the figures in the room to actually showing them in reality and you can see they too are missing limbs and covered gashes and grime.

Here is a rough story reel of what was just described:
http://www.fx.clemson.edu/~atriple/860/storyreel1.mov

Here are some source images for the setting: