Tishani De Silva

Treatment

Product
The product is a 2 minute opening sequence of a horror film. The opening sequence
involves a teenage girl (the protagonist) waking up in the forest, covered in blood. She
appears to not have any recollection of the events that led her to waking up in the forest,
however once a male figure dressed in all black (the antagonist) becomes visible to her she
seems to remember some events and starts running away from him. The sequence ends
with the protagonist tripping up and the antagonist catching up with her then striking her with
a large object and her vision becoming blurry. Before we release the film we will promote it
through teasers as we want to encourage interest in the online community before its initial
release. We will also promote the product through social networking sites (twitter, Instagram)
to generate interest amongst the younger members of the target audience, this is also cost
effective and relatively easy to manage.

Target Audience
The target audience we have chosen is 15 35 (both genders and socio-economic groups
C1 E). We have chosen a mass market as oppose to a niche market so there is a greater
chance that more people will watch it as it will appeal to a wide variety of people. We chose
15 as the lowest age as the film rating is 15 so it would be pointless trying to appeal to
younger consumers. The age group in general will be more likely to socialise and have more
free time whereas those younger may not be allowed to go out and those older may not
have enough time on their hands due to families/jobs etc. (which we found out through the
pre-questionnaire). Another common trend found through the pre-questionnaire was the fact
that both genders were interested in the chosen genre. Although the reasons why males and
females watch horror/thrillers were different (males are more interested in the action side
whereas the females generally thought that the plot was more important) we felt that we
could cater to the needs of both genders. The general attitude of the age group was that
they would be more likely to watch a horror/thriller in order experience a sense of adrenaline
that they do not experience normally.

Context
The product will be most likely to gain momentum through mediums online, this would
include youtube, twitter, Instagram and search engines including google. Also as a large
majority of our target audience will have access to the internet and use it regularly they will
be more likely to be exposed to the marketing of our product, also if our product does
become popular online this will increase exposure of the product significantly and increase
the size of the target audience considerably.

Media Concepts
Media Languages
Lighting We will use low key lighting in order to emphasize the mystery and to create an
atmosphere which makes the audience feel unsafe, in order to encourage an adrenaline
rush.

Tishani De Silva
Camera Work The shots used (featuring the antagonist) will be sharp and unstable, to
encourage a reaction from the audience and to make them feel threatened by the antagonist
and therefore ultimately fear him.
Sound The sound used in the film will be non-diegetic instrumental in order to add to the
atmosphere and will enhance any tension created in the shots. As well as non-diegetic
sound effects which will be placed in key moments to heighten tension already created
through the events of the narrative.
Institutions
The budget of the film will be low, therefore the quality of the final product will be significantly
poorer in comparison to productions which have a much higher budget. Because it cant
compete with films of a much larger scale the production will be distributed through an
independent company in order to have a greater chance of attracting alternative audiences
as well as the initial target audience. The name of the production company is Nightfall
Productions and its logo can be seen underneath.

Representations
The film will include dominant, stereotypical representations of characters, for example the
protagonist will be represented as the damsel in distress as she is young and female and
appears to be vulnerable in comparison to the antagonist. The antagonist will also be
represented in a stereotypical manner as the antagonist is male and appears to threaten the
damsel in distress. We chose to stick to the stereotypical representations found within the
genre in order to create a product that would appeal to our target audience as oppose to
choosing to represent the characters as counter-types as it may not appeal to the target
audience due to the fact that it may not feel familiar and therefore it may not appeal to them.
Genre
We are going to follow the genre conventions, this will allow the audience to feel more
comfortable in terms of what the film is about and it will therefore encourage more people to
watch it. Examples of this includes a victim who is female and not of an ethnic minority, this
complies with the conventions for horror/thriller. We are also using low-key lighting and
quick, unstable shots to reinforce the sense of vulnerability and mystery.