REFLECTIONS: TREATMENT

THEMES: SONDER, bizarre, realisation, memory, everyday lives, journey, routines, worries, craziness, friends, ambitions, relationships, problems, encounters, moments, drama.

SYNOPSIS

We will be taken through this journey of memories and sonder as we encounter the lives of others around us, as they also have memories that are being and have been created. Memories that are as similar to our own but yet not everyone perceives this. We will go through this 5 - 10 minute POV journey that will outline our everyday lives by meeting the various amount of people around us, because in reality we meet and see all sorts of people, and so it is up to each crazy and vivid encounter throughout this film to help the audience sonder. 

I bring to you a basic concept, structure and style for a fact based film. This treatment does not include a story for my film as this is something I would want to work on with my team. I want everyone to participant within creating all these crazy and vivid encounters that will feature in this film. 

The story will follow only one character and their encounters through one day. There would limited amount of dialogue coming from this main character as I want the audience to feel as if they are the main character and they are embarking on this journey themselves. This also leaves the story telling to the "passing by" characters, and this main character (POV) is just observing the drama that these "extra" characters are experiencing in this short moment/encounter.

INTENTION

What I hope to achieve with this film is to give the audience that realisation feeling that I'm sure many of you have had. It's poignant, relieving and thought provoking. 

I want people to SONDER. 

n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

P.O.V footage has existed since the first cameras were mounted in early airplanes and cars, anywhere a film's creator intended to take viewers inside the action with the psychological purpose of giving thee viewers a feel of "what he or she is going through", he or she being a participant in the subject matter. 

The audience sees events through the leading actor's eyes, as if they where experiencing the events themselves. 

STRUCTURE AND STYLE

the film will consist of an open structure that will hopefully allow the audience to make sense of what is going on for themselves.  

"Slackers" a film directed by Richard Linklater is a perfect example of the style and structure that I want my film to have. Slackers does not rely on almost any form of narrative, being rather its own mass of life. The film follows an individual around for a period of time until it has had enough of them, and then moves on to some one else.

The encounters featured within the film Slackers are the encounters that I want this film to have. 

Here is some more examples of some great P.O.V shots that i think work well: 

http://www.shortoftheweek.com/2011/05/08/tune-for-two/

http://www.shortoftheweek.com/2010/12/16/dark-times/

CASTING

www.starnow.com

we will need a various amount of characters, depending on the overall story, and using starnow will allow us to find and audition actors that will fit the roles of the characters in this film.  

Actors will not be paid a wage, as this is a student project, and we will have to offer expenses including food to all actors that participate. When searching for actors we will have to be reliant on actors that are not too far from our shooting location, as we do not want to pay large travel fees. This will allow us to keep costs to a minimum.

POV SHOT

Because the film contains a POV shot throughout the whole film, we will need a helmet rig in order to achieve this, and the best way to do so is by creating a helmet rig ourselves.

This will increase the budget by a bit but it is something worth having as the helmet rig will come handy for future references.

TECHNICAL VIEWS 

There is a certain weakness when filming P.O.V shots as it could look and make the audience feel uncomfortable throughout the whole way through, this is not my intention, and ways to overcome this uncomfortable feel for the audience is to produce several experimental shots. This will allow us to find further any weaknesses and strengths that we can work with and around.

A helmet rig is definite to use for this film as it will allow us to produce a more reliable and comfortable P.O.V shot throughout.