Basic Treatment for Film Opening Task

Working Title

• Dear Diary

Genre

• Thriller

Central Themes

• Stalking, kidnapping and murder

Synopsis

• Lucy is a smart A-level student who aspires to be a writer and documents her life daily, her life gets turned around after she is met with her stalker who has been planning to kidnap her for months. The truth of the mysterious disappearance of her friends are soon revealed through their dead bodies of the kidnappers house. Her only sanity is the continuation of her diary entries which keep her hope alive and potentially save her life.

Pitch

• Our film will be different compared to other crime thrillers as the audience will see the movie from the perspective of the person who is kidnapped. You will see all the hardships and traumatic experiences she has to endure to create a hard hitting, emotional and at times, scary film.
• Our target audience will be certified a 15 due to more explicit content and violent themes.

Characters

• Lucy - A 17-year-old school girl who is focused on her studies and building a secure and bright future for herself. She will be played by someone who studies A level drama and has confidence to act to a camera.
• Frank - A 39-year-old who is smart, however, very psychologically unwell due to his upbringing. For the movie opening he will hardly be in it and you won't see his face so any boy can play this roll.

Film Opening Sequence

• The opening sequence which we will be focusing on will start with a flashback to before Lucy is kidnapped and shows Frank's room filled with photos of her at school, out with friends, at her house etc. this will be voice-overed by one of her diary entries.
• It will then switch to modern day where Lucy will be on a run, she will take a shortcut through the forest and start to hear twigs snapping and bushes rustling.
• In shock she will drop her phone and as she stands up and turns around, a man in a black coat will be standing behind her, the screen will go black and the title will be shown.

Film Techniques

• The opening will be filmed from the audience's perspective but will then switch to Frank's view when the tension changes.
• We will use a dark colour pallet and low-key lighting to create a more sinister feeling. Also we will use cut transitions to reflect the fast pace of the film and long shots to show who's perspective we are watching it from.

Production Considerations

• We will need a big field area that's surrounded by a forest of some description. The field opposite The Thicket is probably a good location or Ockwells Park.
• It would need to be a big space but also a forest, somewhere that is dark always creates a more tense atmosphere.