Andrew Hodges

Di Wang
Francisco Snchez
Meaghan Desilets
Xueting Zhang
Project 2 Outline - The Importance of Sleep
Our video will be a combination of fiction and documentary. The video opens with
Francisco, a typical Tech student. Francisco has had a very busy week and hasnt gotten
anywhere near enough sleep for the past few days. We are taken through an ordinary day in
Franciscos life. He goes to his classes, eats lunch, attends lab, and then its time for him to start
his homework and study for his calculus test the following day. He doesnt sleep for more than a
couple of hours. He feels like hes learned the material well, but when he gets to his class and
receives the test, he cant remember anything he read or did the night and morning beforehand.
He finds a flyer advertising the services of Dr. Desilets, an expert on success. The doctor
explains to Francisco that his unhealthy sleeping habits are the cause of his forgetfulness, and are
responsible for other problems hes been having as well. We are introduced to what is actually
happening in the brain during the sleep cycle--because it is clearly not entirely restful. She
explains that everyone requires different amounts of sleep, but also the universal importance of
sleep for the conversion of memories, for improved attention, for dexterity, for logical reasoning,
and for overall mood. She gives Francisco several suggestions for how to ensure that he is well-
rested enough to perform to his full potential, such as napping, scheduling his classes to fit his
chronotype, and cutting down on nonessential activities that eat up too much of his time. She
also explains the battle between the awake and sleep armies, and suggest that Francisco not
schedule anything for the time of day when his awake army is most likely to flatline. This
information will be presented in a couple of different ways. Some will be shown with the
doctors voice narrating in the background while the different aspects are shown using a
combination of actual scientific proof such as pictures, graphs, etc., and metaphorical
representations (such as actual people playing the sleep and awake armies and battling to
represent the interplay between the C and S cycles). The rest will be shown in conversation
format between the doctor and Francisco.
With his newfound knowledge, Francisco and his friends interview several students on
campus, questioning them about how much sleep they got the previous night, as well as their
general sleep habits, chronotypes, and how they think that these factors affect their success here
at Tech. They explain some of the new things that they have recently learned about the
importance of getting enough sleep.
The video fast-forwards six months, to Francisco in his second semester of college. He is a
very productive and healthy student, with excellent time-management skills, good grades in all
his classes, extracurricular activities, and a good group of friends. His secret? He always makes
sure to get as much sleep as possible, and makes up for lost sleep by taking naps or by sleeping
for longer periods of time on the weekend. His schedule is congruent to his late chronotype--his
earliest class is at eleven. He finds that he does not need to spend as much time going over and
over the same material before a test, because he remembers it much more easily. He gets sick
less often, and is generally happier.

Pitch: Welcome to the world of Francisco Snchez, a seemingly normal college student who is
about to embark on a life-changing adventure of acquiring essential information concerning how
to succeed in life through the thing so many of us take for granted: sleep.