TREATMENT FOR A

Production TitleProduction Title

F.U.TURE PRODUCTIONS came up with many titles for their thriller including:

• DISTORTED• DISCONFIGUREDBut finally we settled on:

As it gives a clue about the genre of thriller we have made and the action within the film.

Viewing contextViewing contextBecause we want our thriller film “disconnected” to be of high standard and with a wide audience viewing our film will first of all be shown in cinemas all over the country such as the VUE in Reading or more independent cinemas such as The Showcase in Winnersh.After the film will be produced into DVD form so that our audience can purchase the film and watch it in their own homes. Eventually we would like “disconnected” to be broadcasted on TV channels, for instance Film4.

Our DVD Our DVD cover.cover.

Our DVD cover

has to relate to

the film, whilst

being interesting

to capture

audiences

attentions.

Genre of FilmGenre of Film We have decided to make a Thriller in order to thrill our audience.

Because there are so many different kinds of thrillers such as:• Sci-fi/ Crime/ Gangster we decided on a psychological, supernatural thriller as we found

this very interesting and felt that we could still thrill audiences by showing less onscreen.

Our initial feelings were to do Crime however we felt this had been done so many times before.

Film Ideas and Inspiration:Film Ideas and Inspiration: Our inspiration were from supernatural films such as “Signs”, “The Sixth Sense” and “The Others”. These all had elements of the afterlife or other forms of life in them. We liked the idea of this to excite audiences, however we also liked the idea of having a psychological factor such as “Memento” and putting the characters in an everyday situation and setting to allow our audience to feel as though it could be them, emphasising the realism.

AUDIENCEAUDIENCE

We completed a questionnaire for audience research (as seen earlier in the blog). Our results showed that our target audience, because it’s a thriller will serve more for the male viewers however because our film is focused on a young girl and is not using masculine qualities such as explosions etc. it would entice the female spectators too.

We have investigated certificates and found that most thrillers are 15’s and so catered for the age of 15+ because the audience need to understand the whole plot, especially with a thriller as they are often intricate and confusing! Also a younger age may find some of the content, for instance supernatural elements disturbing.

AIMAIM Our aim of “DISCONNECTED” is to entertain our

audiences whilst making them feel uncomfortable and nervous in their own homes.

This is how we felt whilst watching “Paranormal Activity” and we wanted perhaps not to that

extreme but we wanted to create the same mood and tension in their scenes as in ours. They also

had elements of supernatural beings in their films and so we based much of our aim on this

idea. http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/paranormal-activity/trailer

NARRATIVE ELEMENTSNARRATIVE ELEMENTS (main plot and characters)

Main Plot:Main Plot: John Fuller lives with his daughter

Lilly and mother-in-law Jean in a grand house and have been “bereaved” after murdering his wife and mother of Lilly. When strange happenings begin he doesn’t quite know what to make of it. One wet, dark, damp day the two decide to go out but when a light is left on, John returns upstairs, locking Lilly in the car. However the light is mysteriously switched off once upstairs and when he checks Lilly is no longer in the car. John begins to panic but then see’s that Lilly is sitting in the living room watching a blank TV and laughing, holding something unclear to John at first but then revealed as a photograph of Lilly and Rebecca. Question is who or what is behind these unexplained occurrences?

Characters:Characters:The characters that we have included in our film opening are:• John A full time father who has recently murdered his wife Rebecca after a jealous incident. He lives with his daughter Lilly and Rebecca’s mother Jean.

• Lilly A 6 year old girl who has recently lost her mother Rebecca. There is a strange resistance between her and her father John which grandmother Jean becomes suspicious of. When Rebecca’s spirit enters the house she is the only one who has a connection and can see it.

Extra Characters to the plot:• Jean Lily’s grandmother, and mother of Rebecca. She has a bit of a tensioned relationship with John as she never agreed with his marriage with her daughter and is suspicious of her daughter’s sudden death, however she moved in to help John look after Lilly.

NARRATIVE CODESNARRATIVE CODES PLOT ENIGMAS PRODUCEDPLOT ENIGMAS PRODUCED

Within our opening we wanted to raise enigmas and for the audience to want more. As the story goes on the audience will know why the strange

occurrences are happening, who is behind them and what they are trying to say, for example Rebecca is trying to protect Lilly from John.

In this way we have been influenced by the thriller “What Lies Beneath” in which the main character (Harrison Ford) seems to be helpful and caring

towards his wife (Michelle Pfeiffer) who is being followed by a spirit, however the plot develops and we find that he has committed a terrible

crime.

Narrative Codes & Questions RaisedNarrative Codes & Questions Raised • How did Lily get out of the car?How did Lily get out of the car?

•Who is contacting Lily?Who is contacting Lily?

•Why is the light on but then off when John returns Why is the light on but then off when John returns upstairs?upstairs?

•Who is in the photograph that Lily is holding?Who is in the photograph that Lily is holding?

•Why is there no mother in the family?Why is there no mother in the family?

STYLESTYLE We want our thriller opening to be a

naturalistic style and to make the audience feel as though they were

watching a naturalistic setting. This would make more of an impact on the audience

as they could put themselves in the character’s position.

This is why we filmed our opening in a house with our character’s being a father and daughter to

make our opening as realistic as possible! When we researched the beginnings of different

thriller films we noticed that with the more realistic ones we were

1) quicker to connect with 2) more interesting as we could relate to it

The films that we researched that has a realistic style opening were:““Atonement” (2007)Atonement” (2007)““Inception” (2010)Inception” (2010)

NON-DIEGETIC MATERIALNON-DIEGETIC MATERIAL Throughout the opening of our film we are including titles and ambient music to set the mood. After researching

openings of Thriller films we saw that titles where a good way to introduce the film, whilst giving it a professional finish. The thriller’s that we researched were the titles from “Seven” and “The Usual Suspects”.

The non-diegetic music we have found adds atmosphere to the scene and can say a lot about the scene without using dialogue. When we researched

into “The Haunted” we found that in order to get the audience to have the right response toward the action- in our case anxious for the family-

atmospheric music was highly important. We will use this material when John returns back to the house to turn off the light. Our music will be

mysterious to give the sense that something is not as it should be. We will also use stings of music to show there has been some change, for example when the audience can see Lily running through the background in shallow

focus.

TITLESTITLESTITLESTITLES

LOGISTICSLOGISTICS We decided that to emphasis the

mysteriousness of the opening we needed a lonely and eerie house and so we found our location at a place called Laleham Abbey near Staines because it added an atmosphere to our thriller opening.Settin

g and

Locatio

n

We are going to film both inside the house and out(as it is part of our plot) but our establishing shots at the

beginning will be outside to create a tense atmospheric mood. Whereas inside we will be using the dinning area (where John looks out to the car), the stairs and the living area.

We will use a number of properties within our opening to help to create suspense and a mysterious ambience and raise enigmas. We will use:•Car (lock lights show quickly that the car is locked)•Car Keys (how does Lilly get out of a locked car?)•Television (why is the TV fuzzy?)•Doll (symbolises innocence)•Picture Frame with picture in it (what is Lilly looking at and why is she looking at a photo of her and her mother?)

Because our thriller plot is set in a house with everyday people (father and daughter) we wanted our costumes to be like everyday wear and so it the plot isn’t given away too easily. We were influenced (especially with John’s costume) by the “Bourne Supremacy” .

•Lilly needs to wearing a coat outside as we incorporated into our script John saying “Put your coat on, it’s cold out there”. This is to indicate an expected father/daughter conversation and what it would be like, however later when her coat is off inside the house this shows that something isn’t quite right.

• John’s clothes need to be quite dark to illustrate that he is in indeed in mourning for his late wife, but also that he is possibly the villain who we need to watch.

We wanted our lighting to give off a strange feel to emphasise the strange happenings in the opening. Outside we wanted the light to be ambient lighting in order to make the setting look as standard as an audience would expect. This makes the plot even more chilling to the audience as they can relate to it. Inside we will use artificial lighting to give a definite change between settings. And of course we will use artificial light to show that the light has been left of/switched on by someone in the house. We will also have the TV light which will pick up only certain features of Lilly to show that nothing is completely clear in the opening.

COSTUMES