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Treatment

Working title: The Human Situation

Length: 5-10minutes

Stylistic Approach: Playing with the illusions of reality and the happiness you think you have.

Tagline: What is and what ought to be.

-Short synopsis (25-50 words):

The film is about the difference in how your life and existence is, and how you can never truly come

to terms with this because of the human expectation of what their lives ought to be. Everyone has a

turning point where their life either goes the way they expect it to or not. For the majority its thelatter.

-Mid-Length synopsis/outline (250 words):

We see the protagonist in a mundane environment, and all of a sudden, a small movement out of

the corner of their eye makes them rethink where they are and suddenly see their current situation

in a different light.

The character is at a metaphorical cross road and the heads down both paths. One path shows them

happy in a content life they didnt choose the second path shows them in a miserable situation of

the life they wanted. The second path tries to make them turn back, but they push forwards.

The first path disappears and becomes non-existent leaving them in the life that they ought to have

lived. Where the people look miserable but the protagonist is happy.

The scenes will shift periodically between black and white and over exposed colour which signify the

moods of the character and the surrounding people. The sound will be classical music with a mix or

audience track laughter and booing (The laughter/booing will be easy to record and manipulate but

the classical may prove difficult) I want the work to look and feel like a reality TV show or a live

audience show, where the actor plays to the camera. The filmmaking technique I want to

experiment with is breaking the forth wall. I believe that all of these elements will help the audienceto understand the protagonist and understand his entrapment and his longing to escape into the life

that he feels he ought to be leading than the one he has been content with.

-Analysis of approach (500 words):

The work will be either made on a camera or on a DSLR depending on circumstance and availability,

the film will look very black and white in the sense that to two meanings that are going to be

conveyed will have very definitive visual differences. Techniques that will be used include non-linear

narrative as per the obstruction specification, as well as this I intend to break the fourth wall

between the protagonist and the audience. The work that comes to mind that it mostly resembles is

Mr Nobody (Van Dormael, 2009) whereby the main character Nemo Nobody (Jared Leto) has the

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ability to trace his life from how he was born to his death and view the outcomes of the different

scenarios that would happed depending on the choice of a life altering decision. The film is at time

difficult to follow by the moral is to choose a path that makes you happen regardless of the

surrounding emotion/outcomes of the people around you. The mood for my film is one of

desolation, isolation and despair with a glimmer of hope creating an ambience of overwhelming

suffocation with cause and reason to escape.

Two films that I have watched that reference the type of element I wish to convey include the

aforementioned Mr Nobody directed by Jaco Vann Dormael in 2009 and stars Jared Leto as the

protagonist. The second film that comes to mind is Big Fish directed by Tim Burton in 2003 and stars

Ewan McGregor. The similarity in this movie comes from the sons denial to see that his fathers

stories are in fact truth and not the fiction that he had believed them to be all his life. The two paths

that are parallel to my own are the sons insistent denial of his fathers tales which mirrors the What

is factor, versing the What Ought To Be which is mirrored in his fathers knowledge and

unprecedented belief in his stories that he knows to be true, happy regardless of his sons disbelief.

Overall there needs to be two approaches to the work to fully convey the two misaligningsymmetries between What Is And What Ought To Be.

-Artist biography (50-100 words) :

The key theme in this movie will be conflict, loss and disillusion. I want it to make the audience sad

and shock them into moving towards the path that puts them where they ought to be. I will have to

approach this from a desolate place to give the overall picture a shroud of dread.