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.