Treatment

Treatment Date Production Company - LensToFilm Director – Umut Duzgunce Production Crew – Monisha, Aaliyah and Umut Working Title - SARAH Resources: Equipment Medium/Format Facilities Description of narrative structure and use of film language In this section, you need to describe the style of your sequence. You should cover: • Structure/form – the sequence of events (linear or non-linear narrative) The narrative of the short film consists of a non-linear narrative as the film includes a series of quick flashbacks midway through to give emphasis on the main protagonist figuring out the motive behind the supernatural haunting. The short starts with a shot of the main protagonist sleeping, waking up to the sound of an object that has dropped/smashed. She gets out of bed and proceeds downstairs into the kitchen to further investigate. As she enters the kitchen she notices a broken picture frame on the floor with the picture missing. Sarah picks up the picture frame and as she raises it she notices the picture on the kitchen counter. It’s an old picture of Sarah and her deceased best friend. The shot of the picture last between 2-4 seconds so it gives a mysterious feel without revealing too much about the storyline which we want to keep fairly restricted. Sarah hears a noise behind and slowly goes towards it. As she gets closer she hears the sound of a door opening so she turns and heads over towards it. She reaches for the handle but before she can grab it, it slams shut. Sarah is then surrounded with multiple whispers and at this point becomes really frightened so she heads over to the front door but it won’t open. As the front door won’t open, she runs into the living room to phone for help. She picks up the phone, dials the number and waits for it to ring. She hears silence, followed by a loud scream. The loud scream triggers a flash back of Sarah and her best friend laughing which is followed by a jump cut of the best friend walking onto a road and getting hit by a car. Watching her best friend bleed to death Sarah does nothing apart from watch. The flash back then ends and we see Sarah drop the phone. It is at this point that the Protagonist Sarah figures out who is after her and the motive behind it. The TV then turns on. Sarah reaches for the remote control and turns it off. It then turns on again so Sarah tries to turn it off but this time it won’t turn off no matter how many time she presses the button. We then see the TV transition from showing static to showing a girl just swaying calling her name… Sarah tries to run out the living room but the door shuts and locks before she has a chance to do so. The lights start to flicker as the whispers can be heard once again getting more and more violent with each one. Sarah walks backwards until her back is touching the door. Filled with fright she is on the floor (back still against the door) as we hear Sarah scream “I’m sorry”. Everything shuts off. Complete darkness, no sound can be heard apart from Sarah’s heavy breathing. We hear Sarah reach for something. She then lights it (audience can see that it is a lighter) with her face being the only thing that is illuminated. With Sarah thinking that it’s over, her breathing starts to slow down and with one final deep breath, something emerges from the darkness with fast speed, shouting “Sarah” with a deep rich tone. • Mise-en-scene (setting/location, props, lighting, costume etc.,) The locations that we plan to use is the house as the primary where the main events take place between the Protagonist Sarah and the deceased best friend. The second is a green screen studio to film the TV footage of the best friend swaying calling Sarah’s name. The third location is an empty road in which Sarah’s best friend gets hit by a car. In terms of props we plan to include are; Zippo lighter – Sarah uses the lighter as her main source of illumination after the lights cuts out. TV remote – Sarah uses this to turn off the TV when it turns on by itself which builds Picture frame – This is used by the dead girl to lure Sarah into the kitchen (hence the noise at the beginning). Which is a typical convention of the horror genre as there are always objects/items that make a noise. A Car – This is used as the object that kills Sarah’s best friend which is when Sarah figures out who it is (recognition). Stage blood – this will be used on both Sarah and her deceased friend to give emphasis on the dangerous situation Sarah is in and to highlight the chain of events that started after Sarah’s friend blamed her for the incident which also another typical prop convention of the horror genre as in horror films, one of the characters always end up getting hurt. The main protagonist Sarah will be wearing dark casual clothing which supports a convention of the genre as in horror film you tend to see characters wearing dark clothing instead of bright colours as it adds to the dark atmosphere of the film. The dead girl will be wearing a long dark coloured dress to match the dark clothing that Sarah will be wearing, this again add more emphasis on the horror genre. Sarah’s facial expression will consist of her being calm at the beginning and then as the events take place she becomes more and more frightened and terrified. The dead girl’s facial expression won’t really be shown as she is going to be the main scare factor in the short, however we will get to see her face at the very last scene in which she will be screaming Sarah’s name, we will see her in an angry expression with blood dripping down her face. The type of lighting we plan to use is low key high contrast lighting to give the film that horror atmosphere. The lighting is mainly going to consist of artificial lighting as the character is always going to be illuminated by lights within the house and LED light panels to give us the artistic control to help us achieve the horror film look. For the flashback scenes we plan to shoot the entire footage with natural lighting to give a contrast feel to the dark house scenes in which Sarah is being hunted. We plan to shoot all the footage (including the TV and the Car scenes) with a neutral setting so we can have more dynamic control in postproduction in terms of colour grading and colour correction. • Cinematography (shot types and camera movements) The type of shot sizes we plan to use are restricted towards medium to close up shots as the protagonist is going to be in an isolated environment instead of the outdoors. Close ups will be used in scenes such as the kitchen scene in which Sarah sees the picture on the kitchen counter. Also in the scene we see Sarah using the remote control to turn off the TV (extreme close up of Sarah pressing the button on the remote). Medium shots will be used to focus more on Sarah’s body language to illustrate her fear as the haunting proceeds. Long shots will be used during the flashback to help the audience establish in the different location the characters are in. In terms of angles and movement, we plan to use high angle shots to show the vulnerability of Sarah such as when she runs towards the door. Canted shots will be used when Sarah tried to reach for the door handle which will give the audience an uncomfortable feel. Steadicam/Tracking shots will be used when Sarah is going into the kitchen as it would be the most effective way to introduce the next scene when she see the broken picture frame as the • Sound (dialogue, voice-over, effects and/or soundtrack) • Editing (pace and style)