Pathways Final Treatment

This is the final Treatment which Emma has written:

Treatment
Pathways is a one character driven story based around one a middle aged man named Gary who through his captivating life stories which he’s telling us we learn his true predicament and how he arrived there. He’s walking and talking to camera about his life and past events with comical value to them. His only companion is his dog called Ben who follows him wherever he goes. He’s an upbeat kind of guy with a sense of humour as he laughs at his own comical stories. The music you will hear during this will be acoustic guitar track of happy major chords strumming away. He uses humour to cover up his back story which is quite dark and sad. As the story develops the slow revelation of his situation unfolds and the music will change in suitability of the mood. We will also include flashbacks to visualise his memories he’s coming out with. There is also going to be an audio flashback when hes referring to a family holiday at a beach. The sound will relate to the holiday, so we will hear laughter and beach noises as he describes his memory to us.

Narrative Development

It opens with a black screen with the main character Gary talking over it. This line hints towards his gambling addiction but does not spell it out. Then we see him walk into focus and smile at the camera (the voice over is still playing when he walks into shot.) From here we see him talking to camera about his and talks about staying positive through rough times. This is establishing the main character further and started to build on his story of being homeless, but again not spelling it out. By him saying he is positive it hints to the fact that he has something negative in his life he is trying to stay positive about. Then he goes on to talk of his family memories, hobbies he’s into and he also mentions his friend Ben. By this time he hasn’t mentioned straight up his gambling addiction, but we see gambling tickets in his bag. From this he goes on to talk about his baby brother and how he would want to be there for him (suggesting he’s not at the moment). He then goes onto to say he’s not close to his family anymore, and mentions when he started to gamble. Then this reveal has truly come in and he starts to talk about how this addiction has affected his life, especially in terms of his family. This leads to a flashback of his mother handing over money as he leaves the house for good. But we end with Gary seeming happy, as he says everyone needs someone to look out for them, he reveals his friend Ben is a dog.

Audience-Intended audience 16-45 Working class as most could relate to his stories as they are from all stages of his life and he comes from a working class background.

Purpose-Intended purpose: showing stories of homeless guys that you pass in the street everyday. Homeless people do seem to go unnoticed by society as you walk past them on the street and pay them no attention. We want to make awareness that these are humans with stories just like yourself. We want to keep the fact that he is homeless withheld until the very end. People do not need to know of his predicament to get to know the character.

Style-Shot like Sign language, + Barry +_ about a girl. We knew from early on we wanted a character talking to camera like a kind of diary. Shooting style would include lots of close ups, depth of field, shallow focus, cut aways, subtle flashbacks.

Sound- The soundtrack being upbeat and happy acoustic guitar track, very much like that in the sign language piece. In the audio flashback we are going to be using broken glass noises, beach noises and voice overs to convey the memory. We also need clothing ruffles, shoe shuffles, and various other Foley sounds to add depth and realism to the piece

There's not a great deal within this treatment that specifically relates to my role, however there's obviously going to be a few subtle flashbacks and plenty of cutaways. Ill have to focus on making sure the cuts arent jarring and get the right cutaways for each shot.