SAMPLE TREATMENT
TITLE: The Schizophrenia Experience or DID: (Dissociative Identity Disorder), or What
did she do?
TIME: 4~6 min
WRITER: Adenuga Yomi
DATE:
10-29-2013
The concept of the live action
short film is based on a lady’s sleeping disorder with severe complex
schizophrenia, who constantly hallucinates a lonely environment where she is
been haunted and taunted by an imaginary unknown monster (predator(s)), out to take
her life, the visual layout of the short uses the audience and their point of
view as that of the predator(s) after this lady.
For instance, a scene where the
lady is running for her life down an alley, the camera follows her from a rear
view, and also from the side view, acting as the predator’s point of view.
The opening scene starts of the
film with typographical info on the symptoms of the main character and what
disorders she may have(insomnia, sleepwalking, hallucination), followed by a
voice over conversation between the main character’s psychiatrist and two
officers from the police department discussing the history, trauma the character
went through, the symptoms she exhibits and how she may be a suspect of an
unsolved murder case. (During the voice over scene, the visual establishes the
main character’s bedroom displaying her pills, a disorganized room and finally
revealing the main character in bed)
The first scene starts off with
the main character (herein referred to as Mary Sullivan) in bed trying to force
herself to sleep, but she feels uncomfortable, rolls around on the bed, till
her eyes blinks and she finds her self in an alley at night, dressed in the
same pajamas she had on in her bedroom…feeling lost, isolated, terrified and
hallucinating sounds
Next, Mary hears (hallucinates)
quick movements of some sort of animal as it runs behind her, a blurry shadow
of an unclear predator runs from left to right, she still doesn’t catch a
glimpse of what the monster looks like, wind blows and sound of environment,
taunts her…the predator makes a scratching sound on the wall, Mary turns to the
wall to see blood drip off its surface and she gets terrified.
A close-up shot shows the
terrified expression on Mary’s face, she hears (hallucinated) a similar scratch
even closer in distance to her, Mary panics and screams: “what do you want from
me?” she gets terrified even more, Mary freaks out, and takes to her heels as the location of this predator
remains unknown to her. But she senses the predator running/chasing after and taunting
her every step of the way. (in the running/chase scene, the visual approach
being experienced by the audience makes use of the predators’ or predator’s
point of view from at least 2 camera angles(two predator’s point of view)).
As Mary is running, she trips
over an object, she falls dramatically, hurts herself in the process, now she’s
bleeding on her head, minor bruises all over her body. She picks her self up,
continues to run around this alley, she runs by a tree and gets scratched, she
turns to look behind her, to see the predator but doesn’t catch a glimpse of
anything, the next step she took was on a piece of glass, the falls again, the
scene gets bloody, this time she is agonized…she limps gradually by the corner
of the alley, and tries to hide right next to a dumpster, Mary can feel the predator
getting close as she hears(hallucinates) its voice getting louder as it
approaches her.
Mary enters a transmute and gets
defensive, she spots a huge stick/baseball bat by the dumpster, she reaches out
of her corner to grab it, (the next shot shows the predator’s point of view as
he watches Mary from a close corner, as she grabs the stick/baseball bat), Mary
becomes aware of the predator’s location,(finally!) she turns to look at it,
but the predator moves quick and hides behind the wall on the other side.(this
shot shows the predator’s POV and a swift movement of the camera from right to
left to indicate the predator’s movement as it hides behind the wall, and then
slowly transitions the audience out into a 3rd person’s POV showing
the location of the predator and a focused shot of Mary)
Mary pauses…grabs the
stick/baseball bat and swiftly goes back into hiding, the Predator soon
realizes it’s been made, charges towards Mary….and….*insert anticipation here* (camera
cuts back and forth between the predator’s POV as it charges towards her and
Mary’s facial expression as she prepares to defend herself with this
stick/baseball bat)
From the predator’s POV, he
finally gets by the dumpster, pounces….and Mary appears in the predator’s POV
swinging her stick at the predator’s face (the audience’s POV; the
camera)…Bang!!! Blood splatter over the screen as Mary knocks the predator
dead.
The Ending scene shows Mary from
a low point view exhibiting superiority, as she has conquered her fears and
killed the predator, (the camera pans from the tip of the stick as blood drips
from it, all the way to her face as she breathes heavily). A close-up shot of
Mary’s face as the environment changes back to when Mary was in bed with her
pajamas, camera zooms out revealing Mary looking cleaner, but with cuts and
bruises on her skin, the cut under her foot from the glass she stepped on while
running, and ends at the bloody/baseball bat under her bed. Mary rolls over and
goes to sleep. The End.
Visually, the film look and style
will use a tint of greenish-blue tones with dark orange low key lit scenes; it
will be edited to have fast cut scenes. Very little human dialog will be
present, however a lot more of ambient sounds, foley, and sound effects will be
used for the environment, the predator’s movement, the cry of the wolf, scratch
sounds on the wall, etc.
Lighting; the scenes will be lit
on low key, using more of the existing lights in the environment, and when
required a key light on the main character for close-up shots.
The film’s narrative graph is to
keep the audience at climax for the most part of the film.
On Continuity, a lot of reverse
shots, 180 degrees axis, establishing shots and motion shots will be used to
exaggerate space, and distance
I don’t really intend this to be a solo project,
however collaboration in class is welcomed.
FINAL TREATMENT:
Theme:
the hallucinations of Mary
Sullivan as she is gets haunted by her fears; the schizophrenia Experience
Setting: To simulate a dead alley
environment in Philadelphia.
Concept:
A 3 minutes live action of the
experience of a schizophrenia with sleeping disorders who hallucinates a lonely
environment where she is been haunted and taunted by an imaginary unknown
predator out to kill her, film is shot using the audience’s point of view as
the predator after the main character as she runs for her life in an alley.
Visual Treatment:
Dark scenes with low key
lighting, orange tone for lit areas and characters, buildings all edited to a
greenish blue dead tone.
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