Production Treatment

For our main task, we have been assigned to create the opening of a short film, with a duration of ideally two minutes long.

Title: Him
We chose a short, snappy heading, so that it would strike the viewer, in the sense that it was mysterious as to who 'him' actually is within the film.

Genre: Psychological thriller
We felt this was a good genre to portray from the numerous openings of films that we studied in particular with the same genre to help us give the theme of a psychological thriller.

Duration:
The duration has to be two minutes long as an aim but can be 1:50-2:15 maximum.
When planning our film we had to make sure that we did not exceed this time limit, as to remind ourselves that this is only an opening of a film, and not a full short film, so therefore we are not meant to give a lot of the plot away so soon.

Audience:
We believe the audience that this film would appeal to people who would enjoy psychological films, and similar films such as 'Girl, Interrupted'.
However, teenagers are our main audience as the main character is a teenager, so we felt that the viewers would have an instant connection being a similar age.
Overall, for the opening of our film we deem it suitable for all ages, and do not find it too disturbing for younger viewers, however, if we were to continue filming for the rest of the film, we would make the footage suitable for persons 15+, because we feel that some scenes in relation to other psychological thrillers include some unsettling thriller aspects, and possibly bad language and violence not suitable for children.

Résumé:
The main plot of our film, involves a young psychotic girl who due to her paranoia ultimately becomes increasingly insane. Her imagination is abrupt; making her believe that there is a person trying to destroy her life and ruin her musical aspiration which is considered her most important thing in her life currently.

Costumes:
The main character's appearance of the young girl, should instantly give the impression that she is not necessarily in the correct frame of mind, due to her untidy appearance.
Wearing dark, unclean clothes such as black track-suit bottoms and a dark, denim jacket accompanied with a plain T-shirt, portrays the idea of her not following the current fashion trends that the majority of young girls similar to her age do. This would suggest that she is already cut off from society and doesn't fit in, whilst at the same time contributing to the idea of her perhaps due to her abrupt, difficult lifestyle means that she does not have the money to dress according to typical social group.

Props:
Some props were essential within our production as they were symbolic and helped in achieving our story line. For example, the large back-pack that she carried around with her for the majority of the opening was symbolic, in which it shows that perhaps all her belongings are located within the bag and that she has no set, stable place to live, therefore carries it around with her.
Furthermore, the beer can was also used to help represent her age, and to further enforce the idea that she is unstable, leading to her drinking alcohol in public alone, representing her as having a troubled lifestyle, ultimately making her appear unsociable.

Locations for filming:
We chose to film a lot of our footage at Alexandra Park, close to college. Partly because it was practical for the group as it was close to college, and a lot easier to be organised with time, but also it was due to it already being one of our original ideas to have the main character segregated even in a public place such as a park.
Within the park, we found a lonely bench, which would be appropriate in establishing the main character as being alone and vulnerable, and away from the crowd in the actual playground.

We also filmed in college, in the music practice room when she was performing on the piano. However, there was no shots that confirmed to the viewer that this was a college environment, so indeed they may have been mislead into thinking that it perhaps may have been her actual home. Being an opening of a film, we were able to be ambiguous with the props and set, to keep the audience's anticipated as to the true meaning behind these symbolic elements used.

Recording days:
After thoroughly checking over our plan to make sure that we were fully prepared for filming, we filmed mainly during the lessons that we had media, when the whole group was available, so that there was more help by everybody doing their assigned roles that we decided upon. Although, one main concern about filming in exterior shots is that the weather is unreliable so we cannot be sure if the weather will be the same for the next day of filming because it will look unprofessional. Therefore, we tried to film important scenes that appear in the same area, on the same day to try and avoid this from happening.

Budget estimate:
Because this is a college film it will not have a budget.