Planning our treatment

07. 10. 2016 PLANNING: OUR TREATMENT

To write a treatment for our film we watched Frank Ash's video on what audiences want and how to structure a treatment. For Frank Ash, creative consultant who has taught storytelling and creativity techniques to teams across the BBC and beyond, it is important to focus on the audience: what will interest the audience? How will the narrative develop? 

• "So, if you’re aiming for your film to reach a large audience online, making sure it has universal appeal will be key. We’ll be thinking about this in more practical terms later in the week, but let’s bring Frank Ash’s points together with the last step’s concerns:
• Think about your favourite book or film or any ‘good story’ you recently watched online, could you sum up its narrative into ‘one elegant sentence’ to provide its ‘topline’?
• What was its big story question, and how important was it to your appreciation of the text?"

 Thanks for the presentation to The University of Birmingham and FutureLearn: 
Video © BBC, Text © University of Birmingham.

Top line: During routine injections a girl discovers secret information about what they are being tested on and is taken away by the head of the drug corporation.

The big question: What happens to the subjects? What did the girl see? What are they going to do the girl?

Subject 45

A line of school pupils in a waiting area chat as they roll up their sleeves ready for their routine injections by the school nurse. One by one they go across and get their treatment and leave. The atmosphere is relaxed. One girl, bored, peers behind a screen and notices a pile of files. Idly, she leafs through them and stops dead in her tracks when she sees something that disturbs her. A hand on her shoulder prevents her looking further. She is led away. Cross cut to the school principal on the phone reassuring someone that the trial of 45 children is not compromised. Cross cut to the girl struggling. Sound bridge: “There is one little issue that we are taking care of and I assure that it’s under our control. The girl in question will be sedated overnight.” Over the shoulder shots reveal information about ‘big pharma’ and identity photographs of pupils. Cross cut to POV shots of what the girl is seeing as she lies bound on a treatment table / bed gazing fuzzily at the ceiling. The light is swinging and her vision is blurred. Her eyes slowly close. TITLE appears:

The girl’s eyes snap open and she gasps.

 

Question 2 part 2

Editing

One use of editing in the opening scene is the use of Bullet-time. This an effect where time slows to match the speed of bullets, but the camera moves at normal speed. The matrix introduced the bullet-time effect into cinema and is now one of the most famous editing tricks in the world. In this sequence, bullet time is used when Trinity is attacking the police officers. This is the first sign that the main characters have special abilities as no normal human could pull off such an incredible feat. The bullet-time shows trinity in what looks like a martial arts pose, about to kick the officer, this shows us her incredible skill and agility and gives a reason to support her as she is outnumbered but is still winning the battle against the police.

Another use of editing is at around 1 minute into the scene. We see a huge amount of numbers scrolling down across the screen as each one eventually turns into a single number at the top of each column. The camera slowly zooms in to a gap in the top line of numbers, it is only the last moment of the section that a 0 fills in the gap. At this point something very strange happens to the numbers, they all morph into much larger versions and the camera travels through an impossible gap in the middle of the 0, showing us what looks like an infinite amount of something that could be files. This suggests that the numbers we are seeing are more than just numbers, they actually hold huge amounts of information and they seem to be the way the characters are communicating.

Soundtrack

The line "No Lieutenant, your men are already dead" is extremely ominous and is spoken by the main Agent. The fact that he says it so calmly and at such an even volume adds to the strange and unnatural aura that surrounds the character. It is also a very clear sign that he has some sort of special power, as he already knows that the police officers will be dead before seeing any of them and before trinity even begins attacking them. This also suggests that the Agent has had a long history with Trinity as he knows her powers and how deadly she is.

There is very little music during the scene where the police officers enter the building and all that can be heard is their footsteps. This is because the police are trying to be as quiet and stealthy as possible, in order not to alert the target to their presence. The very quiet music builds up tension and makes the audience feel quite nervous because all they have to focus on is the grimy walls of the building and the strange noises that occasionally swell loudly in the soundtrack. This makes the breaking down of the door seem even more extreme than it actually is, because it is very loud and is the only noise that we have heard in quite some time.

Question 2 part 2

Editing

One use of editing in the opening scene is the use of Bullet-time. This an effect where time slows to match the speed of bullets, but the camera moves at normal speed. The matrix introduced the bullet-time effect into cinema and is now one of the most famous editing tricks in the world. In this sequence, bullet time is used when Trinity is attacking the police officers. This is the first sign that the main characters have special abilities as no normal human could pull off such an incredible feat. The bullet-time shows trinity in what looks like a martial arts pose, about to kick the officer, this shows us her incredible skill and agility and gives a reason to support her as she is outnumbered but is still winning the battle against the police.

Another use of editing is at around 1 minute into the scene. We see a huge amount of numbers scrolling down across the screen as each one eventually turns into a single number at the top of each column. The camera slowly zooms in to a gap in the top line of numbers, it is only the last moment of the section that a 0 fills in the gap. At this point something very strange happens to the numbers, they all morph into much larger versions and the camera travels through an impossible gap in the middle of the 0, showing us what looks like an infinite amount of something that could be files. This suggests that the numbers we are seeing are more than just numbers, they actually hold huge amounts of information and they seem to be the way the characters are communicating.

Soundtrack

The line "No Lieutenant, your men are already dead" is extremely ominous and is spoken by the main Agent. The fact that he says it so calmly and at such an even volume adds to the strange and unnatural aura that surrounds the character. It is also a very clear sign that he has some sort of special power, as he already knows that the police officers will be dead before seeing any of them and before trinity even begins attacking them. This also suggests that the Agent has had a long history with Trinity as he knows her powers and how deadly she is.

There is very little music during the scene where the police officers enter the building and all that can be heard is their footsteps. This is because the police are trying to be as quiet and stealthy as possible, in order not to alert the target to their presence. The very quiet music builds up tension and makes the audience feel quite nervous because all they have to focus on is the grimy walls of the building and the strange noises that occasionally swell loudly in the soundtrack. This makes the breaking down of the door seem even more extreme than it actually is, because it is very loud and is the only noise that we have heard in quite some time.

Question 2 part 2

Editing

One use of editing in the opening scene is the use of Bullet-time. This an effect where time slows to match the speed of bullets, but the camera moves at normal speed. The matrix introduced the bullet-time effect into cinema and is now one of the most famous editing tricks in the world. In this sequence, bullet time is used when Trinity is attacking the police officers. This is the first sign that the main characters have special abilities as no normal human could pull off such an incredible feat. The bullet-time shows trinity in what looks like a martial arts pose, about to kick the officer, this shows us her incredible skill and agility and gives a reason to support her as she is outnumbered but is still winning the battle against the police.

Another use of editing is at around 1 minute into the scene. We see a huge amount of numbers scrolling down across the screen as each one eventually turns into a single number at the top of each column. The camera slowly zooms in to a gap in the top line of numbers, it is only the last moment of the section that a 0 fills in the gap. At this point something very strange happens to the numbers, they all morph into much larger versions and the camera travels through an impossible gap in the middle of the 0, showing us what looks like an infinite amount of something that could be files. This suggests that the numbers we are seeing are more than just numbers, they actually hold huge amounts of information and they seem to be the way the characters are communicating.

Soundtrack

The line "No Lieutenant, your men are already dead" is extremely ominous and is spoken by the main Agent. The fact that he says it so calmly and at such an even volume adds to the strange and unnatural aura that surrounds the character. It is also a very clear sign that he has some sort of special power, as he already knows that the police officers will be dead before seeing any of them and before trinity even begins attacking them. This also suggests that the Agent has had a long history with Trinity as he knows her powers and how deadly she is.

There is very little music during the scene where the police officers enter the building and all that can be heard is their footsteps. This is because the police are trying to be as quiet and stealthy as possible, in order not to alert the target to their presence. The very quiet music builds up tension and makes the audience feel quite nervous because all they have to focus on is the grimy walls of the building and the strange noises that occasionally swell loudly in the soundtrack. This makes the breaking down of the door seem even more extreme than it actually is, because it is very loud and is the only noise that we have heard in quite some time.

Question 2 part 1

Camerawork

At around 3 minutes into the extract there is an extreme close up on half of Trinity's face as the police officer slowly advances from behind her. This creates a feeling of tension as we can see the danger of the police officer approaching the protagonist and we can see the initially worried look on her face. However, the moment she looks up into the camera we can see that she has formulated a plan as in most films and TV shows, when a character looks up, specifically at the camera, it usually means that they have figured something out.

One other interesting camera shot is used at the point where Trinity jumps over the huge gap between two buildings. The camera pans across the gap, creating a sense of vertigo as we can see the huge fall that Trinity will suffer if she does not make the jump. This also creates suspense and jeopardy in the scene because we know that the heroic protagonist will die if she falls. 

Mise-en-scene

The costumes that the agents wear clearly portray them as the villainous antagonists. their clean cut, sharp suits and sunglasses make them stand out against the grimy, almost pitch black city that they are in. We naturally distrust anything that does not look right, which means that we are clearly meant to dislike the agents as they look so unnatural. The sunglasses also mean that we cannot see their faces fully, which means that we cannot read their emotions. This is another way in which the agents look unnatural and out of place.

The dirty and dark city that the events take place in instantly establishes the twisted, dystopian environment of the film. Every window and every building has fallen into disrepair and the walls are covered in filth and look extremely dirty. Even the wires from the lights in the main building are hanging down from the ceiling, suggesting that the building has not been used in some time. All of this creates a slightly unnerving setting and so we want the protagonist to get out there as soon as possible because it looks like such a horrible place.