Treatment/Pitch

Plot

The scene starts off with several landscape shots, with the sounds of nature and a phone calling someone. As the phone goes to voicemail, we see the first shot of the protagonist. She sighs and leans against the tree that has been marked, playing with the phone in her hands. A shot from the perspective of the antagonist is seen, watching the antagonist from a distance, behind a tree. Back to the protagonist, she begins to pace in irritation, checking her watch in the process, indicating the person she was to be meeting is late. The first glimpse of the antagonist is seen with an over the shoulder shot, with a focus switch from the antagonist to the protagonist. Another phone rings from the protagonist, which she pulls out to reveal is from her mother. It is quickly declined and returned to her pocket, the original phone still present. Back to the antagonist, we see them inch closer towards the protagonist, with a pause at the end to see them soak an old rag in what appears to be chloroform, shown in an extreme close up. This is followed by a close up of the protagonist’s face and shoulders- she moves to the left to reveal the antagonist has now moved to behind her, still slightly at distance, though the next shot is once from the perspective of the antagonist as they move up closer behind the protagonist. Tension is maximised with a close up of the protagonist, still, glancing around slightly (expressing paranoia) and finally looking into the camera, moments before a hand holding the rag is wrapped around her mouth and nose. A struggle between the two ensues, using a hand-held camera for a panicked effect. Within this, the locket is pulled off. This continues until the shot changes to the same as behind the tree from where the antagonist once was, which shows the last of the struggle before the protagonist passes out. She falls back against the antagonist and they begin to drag her. Connecting the shots, we then see the legs of the protagonist being dragged out of shot, leaving only the locket on the ground, dirtied.

Proceeding a cut to black, there is a master shot of the new location, a basement of similar confiding room. The protagonist is seen in one corner of the shot, hunched over. There is then a close up of the protagonist regaining consciousness, panicking, and rising, followed by a shot of her hands which have grabbed around the bars that are confining her, Back to the face, we hear the sound of heavy footsteps and we see the protagonist look down and retreat backwards. The camera follows her eye line to reveal a crack beneath a door, showing the silhouette of a person’s feet. A switch is then made to the other side of the door where you see the protagonists' feet, and a bag being dropped on the floor (the same one as is seen in the first scene). They call someone, and 'It's done' or something similar is heard, and then a shot of them walking away follows, with the sounds of their boots. Back to the protagonist, we see a shot of her which is followed by the darkness being replaced with an extremely bright, sterile light. Finally, an extreme close up of the protagonist is seen, showing her confusion, then her panic. The shot ends with an abrupt cut to black, like a switch.

Influences

One of our main influences for our psychological thriller came from ‘The Disappearance of Alice Creed’, where the idea of some form of kidnapping originated from. From there, our choice of locations were inspired by the projects of previous students both from in school and other schools, due to the atmosphere that was provided from more secluded locations such as forests and grungy rooms. A minor influence that we have used to make the filming smoother is from the BBC version of 'Sherlock', as although it is not a thriller, the idea of on-screen texting as a way of showing calls and messages could be used a more interesting idea than using the cliché of showing the phone. The idea for the locket came from the film 'Se7en', as within that film the wallpaper cutting is suggestive of the protagonist's past, and we felt a similar concept would be effective in our piece. Films such as 'Tower Block' and 'Saw' were the influence for our second scene, as both films involved a character trying to escape a room after been trapped, which we felt would fit the tone of what we were trying to create. Lastly, the idea for having scenes viewed through the antagonist's perspective came from the film, 'Ratter' as we felt it would be effective in showing a different side of things and introducing more shot variety.