Treatment:
Working title of the film: The Living Past
Tagline of the film: “If you see yourself, run”.
Production Name: SFSSTUDIOS
Medium: Audio - Visual
Duration of product: 5 Mins
Certification: 12
Target audience: The audience we aim to target are that of the age of 12 – 25 with the demographics of category D (semi-skilled worker) and E (Student). We choose this age range as it is often young people who are into horror movies and that the thrill and frightfulness of horror movies appeal to the younger generation more. We aim to target both genders as we think that horror movies appeal to both as we have had responses from both genders for our audience survey. The occupation of our target audience would predominately be a student as well as a semi-skill worker. We also aim to target those who have the interest in reading mystery genres novels or watching mystery TV Shows/ Films, into literature, technology and animation. The psychographics of our audience would fit into being “Explorers” category as we think this think that explorers are useful in terms of solving mysteries which is our sub-genre of our movie.
Synopsis of film: The doppelganger is set in two time periods, the 1950s and 2016. The narrative intertwines both periods through flashbacks, flash-forwards and time skips and follows the life of a 1950s columnist Richard and a modern blogger Carlos. Both who are linked by a mysterious store room, that claims the lives of those who step in. Can Carlos solve the mystery of the room that Richard could not, or will he face the same fate as Richard.
Main characters:
Character 1: Richard Williams - He is a columnist working in the typical 1950s newspapers. Richard however holds a deep regret in his heart for putting his work before his late wife Sofia Williams.
Character 2: Sofia Williams – She is the wife of Richard who is very supportive of her husband’s work. She is the typical 1950s housewife but only wants more attention from her husband and wishes him to not be working all the time.
Character 3: Carlos- He is a blogger who aspires to make it big. Just like his doppelganger he also wishes similar things such a finding the big stories and being a leading journalist.
Character 4: Sofia the ghost – She is the ghost that has a mysterious agenda and haunts. She is a lost bodyless soul who is confused and expresses her frustration through possessing bodies.
Key scenes:
Key scene 1: There will be a close up on half of an old newspaper, with the body of the article repeating, I told you not to go, the subheading will change, as the audience will see words being typed and backspaced. The first word will be “THE DOPPELGANGER” (which is our film title and will be in caps lock), then there will be a colorless fade into the letter E from the word “THE”, then the words, EVEN HE DOESN’T KNOW, will appear starting with the E of the word “THE”, then once again there will be a colorless fade into the letter S from the word “DOES” and then the words SOMETIMES, THERE ISN’T AN END, starting with the letter S from the word “DOES”. Lastly, there will be a colourless fade into the letter T from the word “THERE” and the title THE DOPPELGANGER will appear once again starting with the letter T from the word “THERE”. Underneath the title, our company name SFSSTUDIOS will also fade in.The title scene will then fade to black.
Key scene 3 (1950’s): Camera pans to the right travelling from a white wall to the front of an office door.
Key scene 2: Wide shot of an office with old newspapers stack on the left side of the room, a desk with a typewriter and man typing away (diegetic typing). On the right side of the, a coat hanger stands with the writer’s black coat hanging and hat stacked on top. Camera pans to the right and zooms in to black coat and screen fades too black (merging the black coat to a black screen)
Over the shoulder shot of the man shows the man typing away and then long shot is used to show the man pushing the platen of the typewriter to the left. The man then stretches his hands in the air above him letting out a yawn. His eyes then fall on the picture frame beside him. Using shot reverse shot the camera closes up on the picture frame showing a woman smiling, then a close up the man’s face showing a slight gloomy expression. At this moment a flashback occurs.
A two shot is used to show the man talking to the woman in the picture frame. A mid shot of the Sophie who says “I’m going to the store room I won’t be long, here’s your pen, you look incomplete without the pen in your pocket”. Once dialogue has been spoken, the hand held camera used to show woman putting pen in man’s pocket. The camera stays on black pen using a close up to signify a flash forward.
Close up shot of man clenching his fingers in to a fist and rack focus used to focus on fist then picture. A second flash back is used.
A mid shot of man in the same room sitting on his chair looking at newspaper, the he hears a scream that seems to have come from the storeroom. Close up of man suddenly lifting head up immediately as scream is heard. Long shot is then used to show the man placing the newspaper on his desk and standing up. Another long shot is used to show the man walking quickly out of the room shouting out woman’s name.
Key scene 3: Tracking shot of man used to follow man running across corridor to store room, while shouting out woman’s name and hyperventilating, at the same time screaming and muffling from the store room can be heard. The screaming and muffling stops once the man is about a meter away from the store room door. Over the shoulder shot of the man suddenly stopping and camera takes a 180 degree turn to the right showing a shocked and terrified expression of the man (in a long shot). The man continues to walk slowly towards camera and thus door, then close up of door shows door slightly open, then over shoulder shot to show man reaching door handle, but before he reaches the door handle, the door shuts. Close up low angle shot of man shows man stunned, then mid shot of the man’s back banging on the door, shouting out woman’s name, then presses head against door still spouting her name while sounding distressed.
Key scene 4 (1950’s): Camera dissolves to show flash-forward (white flash on the screen) of man looking at photo frame. Then a wide shot is used to show man taking his mind off the picture frame and looking at clock on the wall. The camera shows a close up the wall showing a specific time at around 7:30pm. Camera shows an extreme close up of man’s face looking at clock, then suddenly whispers could be heard, extreme close up continues on the man’s face to show his eyes change from squinting (focusing on clock) to becoming wide with fear. The camera moves out to a close up showing shoulders and sudden banging is heard, causing the man to flinch.
Key scene 5: Once again tracking is used to follow the man walking towards the store room, this time man reaches the door. Mid shot is used to show man putting his hand on the door handle. Close up the man twisting the door handle. The door does not open, so the man takes his hand of the door handle, but at this moment unlocking of the door can be hear and a long shot of the man is used to flinching after hearing the door unlock, open the door and step inside.
Key scene 6(1950’s): Point of view angle is used to show the man stepping to the store room analysing the room, by slowly looking left to right. Suddenly, behind man door suddenly shuts and the camera still in the point of view angle turns around slowly to see ghost, but ghost face is not shown on camera, instead camera switches from point of view angle to extreme close up of man’s face wide eyed and shouting. Then close up of a ball point pens falling on the floor, then screen fades black.
Key scene 7 (2016): The black screen then fades to establishing shot of a modern looking building connoting the skip in time period from 1950s to 2016.
Key scene 8: Panning that moves from right to left, into office of modern man (the same actor of 1950’ man)
Key scene 9: Mid shot is used to show man sitting in front a computer screen, scratching his head and pondering about something. Then a close up of the computer screen, shows that man on blogger, writing a blogpost. The close up shows words being typed but also being removed, showing frustration of the modern man. The title of the blog post is also shown in the close up and it reads “Horror stories of Halloween”. Camera then focuses on clock, that shows 6:50pm and a sound bridge is used, as a non-diegetic sound of a phone ringing can be heard. The camera then shows a mid-shot of the modern man standing and talking on the phone with his boss, reassuring boss that blog post would be up by the end of the day. The mid shot ends with the man putting his phone on his desk and sitting back on his seat. Close up shot of computer shows, man looking at an article in the 1950s, describing the mysterious missing of a man and a woman, in an area that he recognizes. Then close up shot shows Carlos’s facial expression figuring out that the address on the article is the address of where the scene took place. Then over the shoulder shot used, to show that Carlos is continuing to read the article, and the computer screen showing the article will be in focus. The camera closes up on the line that “there were no traces of the couple found” Then there is a close up shot of Carlos reading the article and showing a concerned facial expression. The camera then shoot back to the computer screen, with an over the shoulder shot used, and as Carlos scrolls down, the camera shows was an old damaged photograph of missing man and woman not recognizable. Curious, Carlos then prints out the article, with jump cuts shots of him printing, and then collecting the article and leaves his office.
Key scene 10: A side shot tracking of Carlos’s walking is shown and the camera slowly pans out to display an establishing shot of the building he then wants to enter.
Key scene 11: Tracking over the shoulders shot of modern man walking down the corridor, as modern man is walking, there is non-diegetic banging from the store room door (same noises in 1950). Then a long shot of front body to show, him stopping after hearing noises of the door, the long shot remains to show him curiously walking towards the door. Point of view shot showing him nearing the door and then panning down to the door knob. Then a pull focus and a low angle on the door knob, as modern man reach out to hold the door knob. Before he grabs on to the door knob, the door knob starts moving on its own showing that it is unlocking and camera will remain on the low angle camera shot. As well as movement of door knob, diegetic unlocking of door sounds can be heard. Then a point of view shot (high angle) to show the man stopping his hand and the door knob continues to move. Slowly, the modern man puts his hands on the moving door knob, while the camera is on low angle and the modern man slowly turns the door knob and opens the door slightly.
Low angle close up shot of side profile of modern man’s shoes lifting up to take his first step in to the room and then camera moves to front of his shoes to show that modern man has stepped into the room.
Then a point of view angle to show him stepping in and analysing room, panning left to right, then man steps on a ball point pen and camera arcs down to feet, to show modern man’s feet on the pen. A low angle of Carlos’s face to show that he touches near the camera as if he is picking the pen. Mid shot to show him picking up the pen, standing up and lifting up the article. Panning and point of view shot of Carlos looking at the pen then the article, then an instant zoom into the pen in the image of the article. Wide shot of Carlos, to show him looking around and then removes a dirty cloth, and then he finds the original news article of the missing couple. Then his eyes scan the news article, once again using the point of view panning shot, we use the idea of a double take, to show Carlos taking one look at the cleaner copy of the image of the article, then looks way and then looks at the image again, to realise that the man in the image looks like himself. Then a close up low angle shot of Carlos, to show a shocked and frightened expression. Then camera goes back to article as point of view shot, then moves up slightly (high angle), to show the man lifting his head up slightly, to show tatty looking old shoes. Then modern man slowly looks up, the camera also slowly moves up and mid shot of ghost (1950s man) looking back at modern man. Close up on modern man gasps in terror and then a long shot is used to show modern man taking stumbling steps back and running away.
Key scene 12: Then dolly tracking of feet of the modern man running, with hyperventilating sounds. The tracking slows down as modern man’s slows down and panning up to moderns face to show face all gone white and over the shoulder shot and pull focus to show ghost 1950s man and woman behind him
Key scene 13: A black screen appears and credits appear in the colour white, with sinister incidental non-diegetic background music being played.
Unique selling point: We think our unique selling point is the idea that, the film is set in two time periods, not only this but the idea that both time periods link through a mysterious store room and the idea that the modern blogger happens to be the doppelganger of the 1950s columnists. Secondly, we think these unique selling points are what allow our horror film to fit in with the mystery sub genre as well as the horror genre.
Medium: Audio - Visual
Duration of product: 5 Mins
Certification: 12
Target audience: The audience we aim to target are that of the age of 12 – 25 with the demographics of category D (semi-skilled worker) and E (Student). We choose this age range as it is often young people who are into horror movies and that the thrill and frightfulness of horror movies appeal to the younger generation more. We aim to target both genders as we think that horror movies appeal to both as we have had responses from both genders for our audience survey. The occupation of our target audience would predominately be a student as well as a semi-skill worker. We also aim to target those who have the interest in reading mystery genres novels or watching mystery TV Shows/ Films, into literature, technology and animation. The psychographics of our audience would fit into being “Explorers” category as we think this think that explorers are useful in terms of solving mysteries which is our sub-genre of our movie.
Synopsis of film: The doppelganger is set in two time periods, the 1950s and 2016. The narrative intertwines both periods through flashbacks, flash-forwards and time skips and follows the life of a 1950s columnist Richard and a modern blogger Carlos. Both who are linked by a mysterious store room, that claims the lives of those who step in. Can Carlos solve the mystery of the room that Richard could not, or will he face the same fate as Richard.
Main characters:
Character 1: Richard Williams - He is a columnist working in the typical 1950s newspapers. Richard however holds a deep regret in his heart for putting his work before his late wife Sofia Williams.
Character 2: Sofia Williams – She is the wife of Richard who is very supportive of her husband’s work. She is the typical 1950s housewife but only wants more attention from her husband and wishes him to not be working all the time.
Character 3: Carlos- He is a blogger who aspires to make it big. Just like his doppelganger he also wishes similar things such a finding the big stories and being a leading journalist.
Character 4: Sofia the ghost – She is the ghost that has a mysterious agenda and haunts. She is a lost bodyless soul who is confused and expresses her frustration through possessing bodies.
Key scenes:
Key scene 1: There will be a close up on half of an old newspaper, with the body of the article repeating, I told you not to go, the subheading will change, as the audience will see words being typed and backspaced. The first word will be “THE DOPPELGANGER” (which is our film title and will be in caps lock), then there will be a colorless fade into the letter E from the word “THE”, then the words, EVEN HE DOESN’T KNOW, will appear starting with the E of the word “THE”, then once again there will be a colorless fade into the letter S from the word “DOES” and then the words SOMETIMES, THERE ISN’T AN END, starting with the letter S from the word “DOES”. Lastly, there will be a colourless fade into the letter T from the word “THERE” and the title THE DOPPELGANGER will appear once again starting with the letter T from the word “THERE”. Underneath the title, our company name SFSSTUDIOS will also fade in.The title scene will then fade to black.
Key scene 3 (1950’s): Camera pans to the right travelling from a white wall to the front of an office door.
Key scene 2: Wide shot of an office with old newspapers stack on the left side of the room, a desk with a typewriter and man typing away (diegetic typing). On the right side of the, a coat hanger stands with the writer’s black coat hanging and hat stacked on top. Camera pans to the right and zooms in to black coat and screen fades too black (merging the black coat to a black screen)
Over the shoulder shot of the man shows the man typing away and then long shot is used to show the man pushing the platen of the typewriter to the left. The man then stretches his hands in the air above him letting out a yawn. His eyes then fall on the picture frame beside him. Using shot reverse shot the camera closes up on the picture frame showing a woman smiling, then a close up the man’s face showing a slight gloomy expression. At this moment a flashback occurs.
A two shot is used to show the man talking to the woman in the picture frame. A mid shot of the Sophie who says “I’m going to the store room I won’t be long, here’s your pen, you look incomplete without the pen in your pocket”. Once dialogue has been spoken, the hand held camera used to show woman putting pen in man’s pocket. The camera stays on black pen using a close up to signify a flash forward.
Close up shot of man clenching his fingers in to a fist and rack focus used to focus on fist then picture. A second flash back is used.
A mid shot of man in the same room sitting on his chair looking at newspaper, the he hears a scream that seems to have come from the storeroom. Close up of man suddenly lifting head up immediately as scream is heard. Long shot is then used to show the man placing the newspaper on his desk and standing up. Another long shot is used to show the man walking quickly out of the room shouting out woman’s name.
Key scene 3: Tracking shot of man used to follow man running across corridor to store room, while shouting out woman’s name and hyperventilating, at the same time screaming and muffling from the store room can be heard. The screaming and muffling stops once the man is about a meter away from the store room door. Over the shoulder shot of the man suddenly stopping and camera takes a 180 degree turn to the right showing a shocked and terrified expression of the man (in a long shot). The man continues to walk slowly towards camera and thus door, then close up of door shows door slightly open, then over shoulder shot to show man reaching door handle, but before he reaches the door handle, the door shuts. Close up low angle shot of man shows man stunned, then mid shot of the man’s back banging on the door, shouting out woman’s name, then presses head against door still spouting her name while sounding distressed.
Key scene 4 (1950’s): Camera dissolves to show flash-forward (white flash on the screen) of man looking at photo frame. Then a wide shot is used to show man taking his mind off the picture frame and looking at clock on the wall. The camera shows a close up the wall showing a specific time at around 7:30pm. Camera shows an extreme close up of man’s face looking at clock, then suddenly whispers could be heard, extreme close up continues on the man’s face to show his eyes change from squinting (focusing on clock) to becoming wide with fear. The camera moves out to a close up showing shoulders and sudden banging is heard, causing the man to flinch.
Key scene 5: Once again tracking is used to follow the man walking towards the store room, this time man reaches the door. Mid shot is used to show man putting his hand on the door handle. Close up the man twisting the door handle. The door does not open, so the man takes his hand of the door handle, but at this moment unlocking of the door can be hear and a long shot of the man is used to flinching after hearing the door unlock, open the door and step inside.
Key scene 6(1950’s): Point of view angle is used to show the man stepping to the store room analysing the room, by slowly looking left to right. Suddenly, behind man door suddenly shuts and the camera still in the point of view angle turns around slowly to see ghost, but ghost face is not shown on camera, instead camera switches from point of view angle to extreme close up of man’s face wide eyed and shouting. Then close up of a ball point pens falling on the floor, then screen fades black.
Key scene 7 (2016): The black screen then fades to establishing shot of a modern looking building connoting the skip in time period from 1950s to 2016.
Key scene 8: Panning that moves from right to left, into office of modern man (the same actor of 1950’ man)
Key scene 9: Mid shot is used to show man sitting in front a computer screen, scratching his head and pondering about something. Then a close up of the computer screen, shows that man on blogger, writing a blogpost. The close up shows words being typed but also being removed, showing frustration of the modern man. The title of the blog post is also shown in the close up and it reads “Horror stories of Halloween”. Camera then focuses on clock, that shows 6:50pm and a sound bridge is used, as a non-diegetic sound of a phone ringing can be heard. The camera then shows a mid-shot of the modern man standing and talking on the phone with his boss, reassuring boss that blog post would be up by the end of the day. The mid shot ends with the man putting his phone on his desk and sitting back on his seat. Close up shot of computer shows, man looking at an article in the 1950s, describing the mysterious missing of a man and a woman, in an area that he recognizes. Then close up shot shows Carlos’s facial expression figuring out that the address on the article is the address of where the scene took place. Then over the shoulder shot used, to show that Carlos is continuing to read the article, and the computer screen showing the article will be in focus. The camera closes up on the line that “there were no traces of the couple found” Then there is a close up shot of Carlos reading the article and showing a concerned facial expression. The camera then shoot back to the computer screen, with an over the shoulder shot used, and as Carlos scrolls down, the camera shows was an old damaged photograph of missing man and woman not recognizable. Curious, Carlos then prints out the article, with jump cuts shots of him printing, and then collecting the article and leaves his office.
Key scene 10: A side shot tracking of Carlos’s walking is shown and the camera slowly pans out to display an establishing shot of the building he then wants to enter.
Key scene 11: Tracking over the shoulders shot of modern man walking down the corridor, as modern man is walking, there is non-diegetic banging from the store room door (same noises in 1950). Then a long shot of front body to show, him stopping after hearing noises of the door, the long shot remains to show him curiously walking towards the door. Point of view shot showing him nearing the door and then panning down to the door knob. Then a pull focus and a low angle on the door knob, as modern man reach out to hold the door knob. Before he grabs on to the door knob, the door knob starts moving on its own showing that it is unlocking and camera will remain on the low angle camera shot. As well as movement of door knob, diegetic unlocking of door sounds can be heard. Then a point of view shot (high angle) to show the man stopping his hand and the door knob continues to move. Slowly, the modern man puts his hands on the moving door knob, while the camera is on low angle and the modern man slowly turns the door knob and opens the door slightly.
Low angle close up shot of side profile of modern man’s shoes lifting up to take his first step in to the room and then camera moves to front of his shoes to show that modern man has stepped into the room.
Then a point of view angle to show him stepping in and analysing room, panning left to right, then man steps on a ball point pen and camera arcs down to feet, to show modern man’s feet on the pen. A low angle of Carlos’s face to show that he touches near the camera as if he is picking the pen. Mid shot to show him picking up the pen, standing up and lifting up the article. Panning and point of view shot of Carlos looking at the pen then the article, then an instant zoom into the pen in the image of the article. Wide shot of Carlos, to show him looking around and then removes a dirty cloth, and then he finds the original news article of the missing couple. Then his eyes scan the news article, once again using the point of view panning shot, we use the idea of a double take, to show Carlos taking one look at the cleaner copy of the image of the article, then looks way and then looks at the image again, to realise that the man in the image looks like himself. Then a close up low angle shot of Carlos, to show a shocked and frightened expression. Then camera goes back to article as point of view shot, then moves up slightly (high angle), to show the man lifting his head up slightly, to show tatty looking old shoes. Then modern man slowly looks up, the camera also slowly moves up and mid shot of ghost (1950s man) looking back at modern man. Close up on modern man gasps in terror and then a long shot is used to show modern man taking stumbling steps back and running away.
Key scene 12: Then dolly tracking of feet of the modern man running, with hyperventilating sounds. The tracking slows down as modern man’s slows down and panning up to moderns face to show face all gone white and over the shoulder shot and pull focus to show ghost 1950s man and woman behind him
Key scene 13: A black screen appears and credits appear in the colour white, with sinister incidental non-diegetic background music being played.
Unique selling point: We think our unique selling point is the idea that, the film is set in two time periods, not only this but the idea that both time periods link through a mysterious store room and the idea that the modern blogger happens to be the doppelganger of the 1950s columnists. Secondly, we think these unique selling points are what allow our horror film to fit in with the mystery sub genre as well as the horror genre.
Competitive market: Our competition in the film industry would be The Conjuring two, because of the fact that the horror movie is set in the 20th century and our horror movie is also partially set in the 20th century. This is a competitive factor, because it all relies on who makes the better period horror film. Moreover, The Conjuring two also shares the same sub-genre of mystery, thus this means that we need to present the mystery genre in a more effective and likable way for our audience to appreciate our horror film than The Conjuring 2. Furthermore, we are an independent film company and The Conjuring 2 was also produced by an independent film company New Line Cinema, but the budget of our horror film is of course a lot lower than the budget of The Conjuring 2, despite this, it is a competitive factor, because both of our films will be judged on its artistic factor, thus the artistic value of our film must not be outdone by the artistic value of The Conjuring 2. Lastly, The conjuring 2 have used viral marketing as a marketing technique, such as the use of social media. For instance, the producer of The Conjuring 2 Rob Cowan posted a photo of a real live exorcist on the sets of The Conjuring 2 on his Facebook, apparently blessing the set on the first day of filming. This is a competitive factor, because we want to publish our radio advert on twitter using hashtags, as a form of viral marketing. Perhaps, we should also post something daring as Rob Cowan has as a marketing technique.
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