‘Snake in the Grass’A film noir opening sequence

Treatment Sheet

By Mathew Bray and Kenya Bell

Contents PageCast listSynopsis

Outline and ReasonsTechnical information

Characters and CostumesAppeal to target audience

Creative ideasTitles

Cast List

Investigator/Usurper – Mathew Bray

(Dominic Hudson)

Gang Leader – Jack Waterman (Tony

Pensiero)

Gang Members – Luke Larkin, William

Unwin, Aodan o’Neill

Mysterious Woman/Femme Fatal – Beth

Davies (Rebecca Evans)

Police co-operators – Brandon

Kirton(Sgt Smith), Ben Painter (Cpl

Anderson)

SynopsisThe film is about a private investigator, insert investigators name here (played by Mathew Bray), which has been given a case to investigate a gang from the inside. Once inside, the investigator is

corrupted by the power that he now posses and plans to usurp the gang leaders position and take over for himself. Unfortunately the investigator cannot take over the gang single handily so he decides to convince the other gang members to

side for him and help him in this act.

Outline and Reasons

Beginning: The opening begins with Dominic Hudson walking down a street and flashes back to Dominic Hudson and SGT Smith

discussing the investigation in a diner.Middle: The scene changes to the gang

hideout where a secret meeting is occurring about a future job/heist.

End: The minute the Dominic leaves the diner the shot flashes back into the

future. The narration gets more sincere and it’s revealed that Dominic is holding a knife, the camera pans over Dominic’s

shoulder to see Tony Pinserio lying dead and it quickly cuts to an extreme close up of Dominic’s face from the side as he says something sincere and the camera cuts to black to reveal the title of the film.

Technical Information

Location – Bar/Abandoned Place/Seaton

Sequence Length – yet to be decided

Props: Guns Cars (Unfortunately only modern available) Police Badge Possibly Fake Drugs Cigars/Cigarettes

Characters and Costumes

Dominic Hudson: This is the private investigator that was mentioned in the synopsis earlier. He is a 6ft man of average build with mucky blonde/brown hair. He wears a full suit and tie along with a trilby/fedora for headwear. He plans on usurping the gang.

Tony Pensiero: This is the leader of the gang. He is a rough looking man that looks like he has had his fair share of gunfights, knife-fights, and well, any other type of fight you can think of. He is very experienced in his ‘profession’.

Rebecca Evans: A beautiful looking woman who got roped into the gang at a young age. She is a mysterious woman and not many people know where she came from, or anything about her.

Sgt Smith: An experienced man. Wears a coat and fedora and is very logical. He will never enter a fight where he isn’t 100% sure that he will come out on top.

Cpl Anderson: The opposite of Sgt Smith. He will run straight into a fight, driven by the thrill of action. Wears a police uniform.

Appeal to Target Audience

We intend to stick to a lot of the film noir conventions. This itself is an appeal to our target audience as our target audience is fans of the film noir genre.

It will also attract a secondary audience of people who are fans of action. As the film is a 15 it will likely draw in an audience of thrill-seekers who are of age 15 and over.

Creative Ideas

Please refer to the initial ideas post on either:

http://g321mathewbray.blogspot.co.uk/Or

http://g321Kenyabell.blogspot.co.uk/

Both of these blogs contain an initial ideas post that goes into detail about different filming locations, props,

costumes and storylines.

Titles

When it comes to the movie titles we had a few ideas:

Snake in the grass Dead men walking Paradigm Shift

All of theses ideas were similar to names that were common in the film noir genre.

Snake in the Grass went along well with our storyline; hence this is the one we decided to use. Dead Men Walking was a name that stuck to the film noir genre but didn’t follow our storyline as well as Snake in the Grass did. Finally Paradigm Shift was considered as it means a sudden change in power but when it came down to it, the

phrase wasn’t too common so we decided to avoid it and instead decided to choose

Snake in the Grass since it is a well known saying and helps to tell the audience what

the film is about.