"Flying"- Help me re-write my screenplay treatment.

     For those of you who don't know, I am majoring in communications/media at Virginia Wesleyan College. Two semesters ago, I took my first moviemaking class. I wrote a script about a girl who uses a magical map to travel across the country. She folds the map so that the city & the ocean, & the countryside are next to each other. Eventually she reunites with her boyfriend. My screenplay was picked & we made the movie.

     This semester I'm in advanced video production. Once again we were asked to write an idea for a screenplay. Because I was already buried in an avalanche of academics last week, I spent about ten minutes writing my treatment. Inspired by my lifelong dream of being able to fly, being close to all of my friends & family across the country & around the world, and the two photos below, I wrote a silly little story about a girl who tries to fly.

     After turning in my idea, I received this email from my professor:

"Oy oy oy.  This is really frustrating.  I thought the first half was

great.  I also love the second half.  But here's a problem: the second half is completely unfilmable.  When I read the bit with her trying to

catch the birds, I thought, "It won't work, but it will be easy enough

to come up with an alternative."  But then I read the the last scene

of the film.  It really is a nice ending, but how on earth are you

going to shoot it?!  If you can think of some alternative ending that

can actually be shot, I'll be really happy because I love the core

idea of the story, and I think there is a lot of great visual

potential."

This is where YOU come in. I need you to help me re-write the parts of my screenplay that are unrealistic to film. [If i had an unlimited budget, a couple of years, could hire stunt doubles, and was skilled in special effects, i could probably pull all of my ideas off.] 

I am posting my treatment below. The parts in BOLD are the things that need to be changed. PLEASE, friends, if you have any advice, suggestions, or ideas leave me a comment... i don't care how off the wall your ideas are... i know i have creative, imaginative comrades out there who could help turn this ridiculous story into something magical. THANK YOU, in advance.

Flying

A young girl with a vivid imagination wants to see the world and visit all of her friends and family scattered around the globe. She has always secretly dreamed of flying. She closes her eyes, her arms out to the side, and pictures herself flying through the clouds. Then she begins to get creative.

     She makes her own wings. Running near the shore at the beach she leaps in the air, hoping the feathery appendages will help her to defeat gravity. Dejected because her attempt to fly is a failure, she devises another plan. 

     She scrambles up into the branches of a tall tree, carrying a white sheet with her as she ascends to the top. Perched on on a branch like an oversized bird, she adjusts her helmet, takes a deep breath, and then takes the plunge. Despite holding the sheet above her head like a parachute, she quickly hurtles towards the ground. Before she falls to her demise, the sheet is caught on a branch near the ground. She dismantles the faulty parachute, examines her scrapes, and dreams up a less dangerous scheme.

     She trudges up a green, grassy hill, holding a kite. She runs across the hill, and sends the kite up into the blue sky. Excited by the strong breeze she sprints even faster as the kite whips wildly in the wind. She is swept off of her feet and lifted into the air for a few sweet seconds, but as the wind dies down, she is dragged across the grass. The kite dives to the ground, and she is tangled hopelessly in it's string, laying at the bottom of the hill.

     Bedraggled, she extricates herself and tugs the torn kite all the way back home. Feeling hopeless, she comes to the conclusion that she will never be able to fly. As she walks along the path, she stumbles upon a large flock of birds taking a break from their migratory travels. In a frenzy of spontaneity, she lures several of the birds to her with food from her pockets. With swift movement she ties the kite string to the birds' ankles, holding on tightly and waiting for them to take flight. As they furiously flap their wings in frustration, trying to catch up with the rest of their flock, they manage to lift the little girl a few feet off the ground. She is thrilled to the core, but soon tumbles to the ground below. She is left tightly grasping the string, forlorn, as the birds disappear into the sky above, free.

     With a bruised body and a broken spirit she wanders into her backyard. To distract herself from her disappointing day she offers to help her mother decorate for a garden party. She volunteers to blow up balloons; using all the breath she can muster, she makes the colorful balloons as gargantuan as possible. Feeling lightheaded and woozy, she begins to tie the balloons to the arm of her lawn chair and sits down to rest. She feels even more dizzy as she closes her eyes, hoping that the world is no longer topsy-turvy when she opens them. She shrieks, first with fear, but then with glee as she takes in the scene before her eyes. She is hovering above her backyard. As the wind carries the chair and the balloons away she waves to her mother, who is carrying a cake. The lanterns in the yard become tiny, twinkling lights below and she floats farther away. Carried by the breeze, the chair passes the tree, the grassy hill, and soon drifts above the ocean and out to sea. 

The End.