Rob Here,

Here are the three treatment documents for my three Narrative and Sequence films.

PROJECT OUTLINE
TUESDAY
Tagline: ‘It’s All A Game Until You’re On The Receiving End’

Premise: This short film follows ‘the human piñata’ as he tries to flee from a party into woodland. The film will be of the thriller genre with a dark and comedic tone.

Synopsis: The film starts with sounds of screams with handheld camera blurry running, which cuts to titles in silence. A Scruffy man (The Human Piñata) dressed messily with lots of colours and a puffy coat with streamers and balloons- rope around neck attached to him, runs up path towards top woods. He runs into the woods and between the trees. He runs along a path and trips. Run for a while before sweets fall. As he trips he lands on the floor and sweets start to fall out of him. He places his hand into the small pile of sweet and pushes himself up again, as he stands up there is a small line of sweets on the floor. He keeps looking behind him as the shouts get louder, he then trips over a small root on the floor and the shot cuts to sweets spilling on the floor. Sound ‘he’s over there’ he turns and cant see anyone, as he goes to run the rope gets pulled around his neck causing him to split open and sweets to pour out, he runs further along the path, close up branch hitting him and splitting his arm open. The camera then cuts to back along the path and it moves from the path to behind a tree where just the remains of his clothes are with a pile of sweets. I will film it in one take, making it look like one take- cutting behind trees. The film will be shot following the man, it will be all handheld to suit the cinema verite style. I also want to speed up and slow down the footage at various points to exaggerate certain actions.


Notes:


Characters: There is only one character the ‘piñata’. When cut he spills sweets as a piñata would, his skin is just the fabric of a piñata. During my film he reacts very desperately as he is trying to escape a large group- however he is obviously not made for running so he falls to pieces.


Visual Style: Tuesday will be filmed in the cinema verite style, using handheld camera shots and lots of movement. I also want to apply filters to give the footage more of a degraded and 70s-esque look. Perhaps filming on an older hi8 camera.

Sound Style: I Intend to use mostly recorded sound, to suit the cinema verite style. This will also make the action seem more dynamic and real. The use of moments of silence, with either heartbeats or heavy breathing will help build tension and pace within the film.


Intended Audience: The intended audience for my piece is aged between 16 and 25, predominantly fans of films such as The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield.



PROJECT OUTLINE

FRIDAY
Tagline: ‘The sixth day of the week, following Thursday and preceding Saturday’


Premise: Filmed using mostly close ups, this short avante-garde piece, contrasts fast paced cuts with slow actions to give a feel of a party. This film will feel more like a music video, with an unsettling tone.

Synopsis: Essentially I will throw a mock party and film the party using close-ups and lots of camera movement, the video will then be cut to show the events of the party in a quickly cut montage. Developing from neat plates of food and placed decorations, through food being eaten and party poppers popped to balloons being popped and the room destroyed. I can only predict the types of footage I will collect because I want to film it in a documentary style, with very little direction. The obvious shots such as pans across the table, food being picked up and balloons popped. Really I will just be in the room ready to film whatever action ensues.


Notes:


Characters: There will be no ‘characters’ in my film as I wish to give the idea of chaos. There will be people in the film, however I will film this in more of a documentary style, rather than directing them. Therefore everyone is acting as themselves.


Visual Style: The film will be shot predominantly in close ups making use of focus pulling. I also will layer up footage blended on top of other footage, to make the actions seem strange and give the film a dark feel- playing on the fact that I will just be filming a child’s party. The film will be shot using a fish eye lens because it draws the viewers eye to specific actions, whilst allowing them to see more of the space around- it also distorts the image.


Sound Style: The sound will all be one song, so that the actual sound from the clips and actions blend together so the party seems as one blur. The song is very fast paced and happy, which connects to the children’s party but contrasts to the chaos that could ensue.


Intended Audience: As this will be a very experimental piece the intended audience for it are mainly teenagers. It will also attract fans of music videos, especially the modern ‘chaotic’ party videos.



SUNDAY


Tagline: Desperate Times Call For Desperate Measures.

Premise: A girl eats a box of celebration chocolates, when she decides she wants more, she get the ingredients and make more. It will be filmed in one shot continuously spinning 360 degrees.


Synopsis: The film begin with a girl entering a room and eating a box of chocolates, she eats them all and decides to make more of her own. She gets the ingredients and mixes it together. She makes lots of mess and gets it wrong numerous times, creating more and more mess every time. Eventually she melts chocolate and places the insides in it. The mix will look disgusting as she slops it onto a baking tray. She places the disgusting blobs into the fridge, the next shot I will have actual chocolates out of her wrappers. She then places them back in the wrappers and back in the tin. Another person will then enter and begin the process again by eating a chocolate, I will then fade to black. Every shot will be filmed as the camera spins.


Notes:


Characters: The main protagonist in my video has no other motivation than wanting to make more sweets and will do anything to be able to eat some more. She also places the sweets back in to the tin to make it seem like nothing has happened. At the end of my video a guy walks in to imply that the whole video starts again, like a never-ending cycle.


Visual Style: I want my film to look like it was filmed on a home camera from the 70s, I will do this by making the film more yellow and adding film effects. I will also add a rounded edge border to make it look like an old polariod camera photo. If the spinning tripod movement isn’t smooth as I guess it will not be, the effects will add to the effect of the home-video style.


Sound Style: The sound will be one music track of acoustic guitar playing slowly over the action. I will not use any diegetic sound because it will make it more difficult to film the spinning action and sync the sound. I want it be as simple as possible like the ‘Spike Jonze/ Where The Wild Things Are’ what you see is what you get style.


Intended Audience: My intended audience would be for a largely mainstream audience, made up of teenagers and young adults who have a specific interest in films like ‘Where The Wild Things Are’ and simple romantic films.