Pre- Production - Treatment

Title
Working title of ‘Evidence’
• Evidence is a key theme and is strongly connoted in the title
• Moreover, evidence is often related with crime investigations, which suggests our legal thriller sub-genre.
• It is short and concise, with is conventional for the genre.
• It is clear and hints towards the themes, without giving much away.

Narrative
My thriller is a hybrid of sub-genres (legal thriller/physiological thriller/stalker thriller). In this brief summary I will state which specific areas include one of the three sub-genres stated.

Michael Harris is an average working-class male, until when in his work office he witnesses a gruesome murder. Not one to break convention, he goes to the police to tell them what he has seen (Legal Thriller). During the interview, there is a break due to Michael feeling ill. Alone in the Men’s washroom he is threatened by a masked male (Stalker Thriller). He is told to drop his statement or he shall be killed. However, Michael decides to take a stand and steps into the role of the protagonist by sticking by his statement. His life will never be the same again. He is consistently threatened and chased. He finds help in two police officers P.C Sharma and P.C Chandler. In the conclusion, they think they have located the killer, they go to a location. However, this is where the twist is revealed...P.C Chandler in the killer. He murders both P.C Sharma and Mr.Harris and covers up both of the murders. He is never to be caught.

Click here to see a more structured Narrative description and the process that lead up to me developing this particular plot.

Furthermore, this unconventional ending of the antagonist getting what they want and in effect beating the protagonists resulted from watching the thriller film of Se7en (David Fincher, 1995)




I feel that this unconventional ending could act as a USP, as the audience are powerless to stop the injustice and will leave them consistently thinking about clues and why they did’t realise that P.C Chandler was the killer. (Physiological thriller)


Target Audience

Our thriller is aimed at people aged 15-30, and both genders. We chose this age range as from a survey the responses we got was from people in this category, and also we thought that thrillers appeal to both male and females, therefore we decided to go for both genders. The thriller will be targeted at people who are interested in films, especially those that are intelligent as our thriller at times may require the audience to think and use their intelligence in order to understand the storyline. Our target audience will probably already be watching horror films, also TV programmes that include similar elements for example those like, 24, lost and prison break also watch programmes that involve the law (police officers, investigations etc). Our target audience will be in a working to middle class, and in the social economic group, B-D. We choose this specific SEG, as our thriller requires people who are intelligent, therefore people in the B category, and the others will watch it as it appeals to them through the conventions we will use.

Our film will appeal to them because of the narrative. The narrative we will use will allow us to be creative in production, especially through editing and special effects which will be used to create suspense. Also having to think about what is going on and have to use own intelligence is our unique selling point, as most people do not want to be a passive audience but a proactive audience.

Having analysed the response from others, we know that our audience enjoy Action and psychological thrillers, which we may Hybrid the two genres. We also realised that our audience like movies like the dark Knight, The usual suspects, Memento and 2012, and they said that they enjoyed the unexpected twist in the usual suspects, 2012 creating suspense and Memento the non-linear narrative. We will use these specific elements in our thriller in order for it to appeal to our target audience. 

Representations
• The main protagonist is the person giving evidence as we follow his quest to escape the people who are trying to kill him (Michael Harris). We are looking for him to not represent any particular group so that it is easier for the audience to relate. This will increase the verisimilitude as the audience will find it easier to place themselves in his daunting situation. This introduces elements of a psychological thriller (Which was the 2nd highest preferred sub-genre) as it will leave the viewer feeling uneasy, even after watching the thriller.
• Our antagonist is the masked killer(P.C Chandler). His identity is not revealed until the conclusion. However, through the little dialogue that he does have (whilst he is masked) the audience will understand that he is extremely intelligent. The best way to describe the antagonist’s role is through Vladimir Propp’s Theory on characters. Throughout the narrative the audience will be under the impression that he is the 'Helper' but at the end it will be revealed that he is actually the 'Villain'

Below are the names and descriptions of the characters.

Michael Harris - (Main Protagonist)
P.C Sharma (Akshay Sharma) – He is the character that will be interviewing Mr.Harris in the opening. He will be ‘The Helper’ using Propp’s theory; he will consistently look to support Mr.Harris in his quest to escape from the killer.
P.C Chandler – (Main Antagonist). As this character is two different identities I have broken it down.
Police Officer – He will be very feeble and timid. This is key as his timid nature will act as a red herring due to the fact that the audience will never suspect him as the killer. Furthermore, due to this timid nature he is treated with little respect by other police officers, this explains why he is angry and results to murder.
Unknown Killer – Identity is never revealed until the end where all clues are revealed and identity shown (click here to see how I will conceal his identity). Unknown killer will not have much dialogue but when he does, his accent will be changed and he will be very confident (P.C Chandler living how he would like to.)

Style and Iconography

Camerawork
The camerawork in the opening scene will be used to build tension as little will be revealed by using close ups. I obtained this idea from watching the brilliant thriller What Lies Beneath (Robert Zeneckis, 2000)



A specific idea that I had was that the opening 30 seconds where Mr.Harris is giving a statement to P.C Shields the camerawork is very restricted with lots of close-ups. However, when P.C Chandler knows on the door, his entrance is presented in a long shot to emphasize how feeble he is.

Sound
Adding upon this idea of P.C Chandler breaking the tension in the opening sequence, music will be key to portray this. Firstly, when researching what sound to use I discovered this YouTube video. This emphasizes how important sound can be when trying to build tension. Therefore, just as Michael Harris is about to tell P.C Shields what he saw; the music will build and build. And P.C Chandler’s entrance will cause the music to stop.

Costume/Props
My costume will be very clear, for example my police jumper as shown in my Production Log Week 3
(Jamie Chandler's Production Log)

Technology
• We wanted to include foreshadowing, by having a light flicking on and off in the toilet. This could be done in the editing stage on the iMac, or we could use a strobe light.
• Furthermore, we would like low key lighting (pathetic fallacy), but some of the locations this will not be possible. To overcome this problem we could relocate or we could edit the lighting on the iMac.

Institutions
Due to the complex plot of my film I feel that it would be produced by a subsidiary of Hollywood. However, due to my mainly English audience, the perfect example would be ‘Working Title Films’ which is a subsidiary of Universal Studios. A perfect example is the comedy-horror hybrid ‘Shaun Of the Dead’ is one of their films; it features English accents and English setting, much like my film. The reason as to why my thriller wouldn’t be an independent production is for the simple fact that it is not conventional for that type of production. Independent films are often very controversial, for example Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting.

Distribution
Following the path of ‘Shaun Of The Dead’, the film was distributed main by Universal Pictures in over 10 countries. However, multiple other companies including ‘Rogue Pictures’, may want to distribute my film.

Exhibition
My film would be exhibited in most mainstream cinemas such as the major company of ‘Vue’. Once being released in England, the film would then be shown in America. However, it may be adapted for American release, for example this was done with Working Title’s film ‘The Boat That Rocked’ whose title was changed to ‘Pirate Radio’ to appeal to an American, mainstream audience as it connotes more about the storyline. I also believe that my film would be released on home release through DVD, which is brilliant as thriller films are more entertaining the second time of watching due to the realisation of clues throughout the plot.