Tom Sparks Treatment

Treatment for a journey,

For this project I shall create a piece which follows a character through an inanimate world, which all the sounds are cosmetic and have no life, into a place of vibrant beauty. This film will be as much of a technical journey as it will be a narrative one, as the sounds and shots will gain life progressively throughout.

The character will be joined by the audience on a street; the audience does not know where they have come from. As they walk there will be exaggerated sounds, but no ambience, no signs of life apart from them. They will walk through oppressively dead cold surroundings, which will lead them to a door, as the door opens, ambient sounds flow into the ears of the audience. When this happens the visual will cut to a shot of the main character, which will just show his expression to when he see’s what life can be like, the audience will see his face light up with the prospect of this.

All the shots will be lifeless locked off shots with no movement, until the end when the close up expression shot of the main characters is shown. The mood will be quite cold and lifeless, not necessarily negative, but very scarce. There will still be very loud exaggerated sounds, but these will seem artificial. There will be no ambience, to enhance the surreal and inanimate element of the film. The colours will be warn-out and scarce, almost deteriating, which will mean that the footage will have to slightly over exposed with a cold white balance. This will hopefully result in the mise-en-scene of an inanimate lifeless mood.

This piece will very much be an artist film; therefore the perceived audience would be people who enjoy films such as Svankmajer’s and other slightly abstract films, with style and underlying meanings over the surface narrative. The piece should be projected on a wall in a plain room, with loud sound and clear speakers, as sound is essential to the plot.