Pre-Production Work Part 1.

Shot List 

This is our shot list which we plan to incorporate into our trailer. The variety of different shots and canted angles will hook our target audience into the narrative and make the trailer exciting and mysterious enhancing the fear factor element. 

Shot Number		Angle	Movement		Notes
1		High angle	Tracking shot		To show the road leading to their new house
2		Establishing long shot	Pan		The car is slowly pulling up to their new house
3		Close up	Steady		The daughter is seen inside the car which also shows the reflection of the new house
4		Long shot	Steady		The father and daughter are unpacking their things from the back of the car.
5		Close up	Steady		The shot will be taken of the top of the swings to imply the daughter is having fun
6		Over the shoulder shot	Steady		The daughter walks in the room, sits on the bed and picks up the photo of her and her mother. A voice over of the daughter.
7		Mid shot	Zooming in slowly		The zooming in is implying someone is coming towards the father. In the kitchen scene
8	Eye-line shot		Steady	Shot of an empty doorway/hallway
9	Over the shoulder shot		Steady	The focus will still be on the father’s face but the daughter will be in the background in the corner
10	2 shot		Steady	The dad comes into the daughter’s room and sits on the bed. He says that he has someone important coming round but the daughter is busy playing.
11	Over the shoulder		Steady	The father opens the door to reveal his new love interest with a voice over of ‘it’s not safe for her to be here’
12	Mid shot		Steady	At the dinner table, the father is in the centre of the shot and the daughter and love interest on either side. The candle-light and everything else blacks out.
13	Close up		Steady	The father is in bed sleeping then wakes up to noises and calls out for his daughter
14	Over the shoulder		Tracking	The father is walking down the corridor slowly to open the door at the end of the corridor. There is a creepy singing and laughing.
15	Over the shoulder		Zoom	The father walks into the daughter’s room with her sitting on the bed facing the window or wall, not the dad. He asks her what she’s doing. It starts zooming in on the back of the daughter’s head
16	Over the shoulder/Close up		Steady	The daughter slowly turns around and whispers ‘Tackle the devil’
17	High angle		Steady	The daughter is running down the stairs trying to escape the house
18	Close up		The camera quickly turns to the love interest	The dinner scene again, the camera turns to the love interest who is bleeding from the face
19	Close up		Steady	Father’s face looking down at a knife
20	Close up		Steady	The steamy mirror in the bathroom with words written on it. Also shows the father’s face and he wipes it off
21	Over the shoulder		Steady	Over the father’s shoulder as him and his daughter are arguing and the daughter claims it isn’t her.
22	Eye-line shot		Steady	Looking at the blood dripping down on the floor/counter
23	High angle - Mid shot		Steady	The daughter sitting under some sort of blanket/curtain
24	Close up		Whip pan	The camera pans around the daughters head very quickly with her hair in her face.

My Group's Treatment

Hush Hush.

By Jenade, Nathan, Hannah and Rachelle

A widower, Alexander and hisdaughter Rebecca recently relocated to the outskirts of suburbia for a new start. After the death of his wife, Rebecca starts acting out, attacking hisnew love interest and blames her imaginary friend Lexi. He begins to questionher new solace in her imaginary friend. Alexander uncovers that Lexi is not so imaginary after all. 

Key Characters

• Alexander Johnson 
• Rebecca Johnson 
• Lexi
• Laura Charles 

  

Key Locations

•      Their new house
•    Their field
•    balcony
•    Their park
•    Hallways
•    Bedrooms
•    Kitchen 

The Story 

Act 1.

Alexander and his daughter relocated to an isolated house on the outskirts of town.  Recently widowed they both believed this would be the new they had both hoped for. Her mother Kathleen and Alexander had their own marital problems but Kathleen always made sure that Rebecca was never in the middle of their issues to maintain her happy childhood. At 10 years old, Rebecca started to notice some of her father’s habits. On one occasion she head them fighting and her father slaps her mum, other times she heard her mother crying at night when her father was out drinking. This was the only time she had witnessed such distress in the house. Times passes and everything seems to be perfect until one night Rebecca wakes up to find her mum’s body at the bottom of the staircase with blood all over her clothes. She calls for her dad but no answer so she cradled her mother while awaiting her father’s return. When he finally did they called for the police and ambulance together. Alexander a change of scenery would be good for Rebecca without the constant reminder of her mum passing away.

Act 2. 

Alexander has constant trouble sleeping and believes he can see his wife’s ghost sometimes. He starts dating a woman on his street Laura, who is repeatedly attacked by Rebecca, but because it was never in Alexander’s presence he figured it was just jealously and that Rebecca thought she was replacing her mother. Rebecca starts blaming things on her imaginary friend Lexi but her father’s suspects she is frightened to admit to it. He starts to get worried that she might be traumatised from the death of her mother. Alexander goes to check on his daughter in her bedroom one night to find her talking to herself about how she going to “tackle the devil” her voice sounded different, demonic even yet it was familiar but he couldn’t recognise it. Her eyes possessed, wide open compared to her naturally lazy eyes.

Alexanderinvites Laura over for dinner, and whilst watching TV and Alexander ispreparing dinner for the both of them. Laura comments on how she would haveliked to meet Rebecca’s mum as she’s heard a lot of nice things about her.Rebecca jumps out of her seat and pounces on Laura, scratching her face,pulling her hair and biting her all over her arms. Alexander had to physically pealRebecca off Laura, locks her in the kitchen and calls the ambulance. He doesn’ttell the paramedics that it’s Rebecca who has done this, as she doesn’t recallanything that’s happened when Alexander asks her, she also claims it wasn’t herbut Lexi who did it. Alexander is worried about his daughter and this made hisrelationship with Laura difficult, as she didn’t want to come between Rebecca. Shewas also scared of her. Nonetheless Alexander takes Rebecca with him to visit Laurain hospital. She is covered in bandages. Rebecca breaks and apologises for whathappened but still says it wasn’t her who did it

Act 3. 

Alexandersends his daughter in the kitchen to get something to drink; she takes a longtime in the kitchen so he goes to check on her, only to find her holding a bigmachete with blood dripping all over it with Laura limbs scattered everywhereon the floor. Speaking in her unrecognisable voice again saying she’s going tokill him for what he’s done. They get into a physical fight and Rebecca slashesher father’s arm. When he starts to bleed nonstop, Rebecca suddenly gets offher dad and sits with a blank facial expression on her face. Alexander callsthe police and they come round the house. It is found that it was actually theghost of Rebecca’s mum Kathleen that was the imaginary friend. As he nowremembers that was his wife’s voice he heard that night in Rebecca’s room.Kathleen’s ghost had taken over Rebecca’s body and soul in order to get revengeshe believed her husband deserved for murdering her that night. He came backhome drunk and demanded for Kathleen to run him a bath and when she didn’t doit immediately he strangled her and threw her down the stairs and went back tothe pub. He confesses to everything to the police and apologises Rebecca forall that he had put her through. He is arrested and Rebecca is taken into care.  

My Film Treatment

HUSH HUSH

Jenade Webster-Watson

A widower, Alexander and his daughter Rebecca recently relocated to the outskirts of suburbia for a new start. After the death of his wife, Rebecca starts acting out, attacking his new love interest and blames her imaginary friend Lexi. He begins to question her new solace in her imaginary friend. Alexander uncovers that Lexi is not so imaginary after all. 

Key Characters

Alexander Hopkins- Middle aged widower and father

Rebecca Hopkins- Ten-year-old daughter

Lexi- Imaginary friend

Laura Charles- Love interest and Rebecca’s teacher

Key Locations

The Old House in Ann Arbor, Michigan

School

New House in Harbor Springs

Hallway

Rebecca’s bedroom

Garden, which leads to a forest open space

The Story

Act 1.

Alexander and his wife daughter Rebecca are re-locating to the outskirts of Harbor Springs, Michigan. Recently losing his wife, Alexander, just Alexander, never Alex, found himself and Rebecca's relationship to be stretched and strained. He put this down to the lost of their idol and tried not to dwell on it too much. He tried everything in his power to re-store normality to their lives. He figured a new start could be the beginning they both needed. A shadow of her former self, she began to express her feeling through an imaginary friend called Lexi. At 10 years old this was strange to say the least. Alexander attempted not to dwell on this allowed her to express her grief through Lexi. 

Act 2.

The introduction to Lexi was intriguing until Alexander began to show interest in a new female, Laura. Now Laura was a substitute teacher at Rebecca's new elementary school. As their relationship become more than what it should Rebecca's behaviour took a turn for the worst. She stopped speaking in class, playing up and distanced herself from all her classmates. She  began to blame her behaviour on Lexi. She drew demonic and evil pictures of Laura getting injured in class instead of her usual happy pictures. "It's your future" she tells Laura. Shocked by this Laura stopped by to talk to Alexander personally. 

Laura stayed over for dinner and all was well until the subject of Rebecca's mother was brought up. Rebecca glared over at Laura with evil in her eyes and excused herself from the table. Later, Laura went up to clear the air, as she reached the top step landing, she was pushed all the way back down to the ground. Alexander rushed out to find Laura sprawled across the floor, bleeding from her forehead, as he looked up to the stairs he witnesses Rebecca standing there. He screams his punishments and for and explanations while panicking looking for the house phone to call for the ambulance. As he hurriedly drive behind the ambulance, Rebecca continues to answer his questions with "It wasn't me, Lexi did it". Fed up and angry, he  gets to the hospital to find Laura is awake and unwilling to have him or his daughter anywhere near her. He trembles at just the sight of them both. 

Act 3. 

Weeks pasted and Rebecca has not improved and Lexi's involvement become more unbearable. He finds pictures of his wife scattered around the house with red paint all over it. One night he discovers messages written all over the bathroom wall in red paint "You did this, and Lexi knows it too". He goes to confront his daughter, yet she is nowhere to be found. He searches the house to find she is outside on the swing. He approaches he cautiously. "You know who Lexi is don't you Daddy" she says in a calm, cold voice, with a detached look in her eyes she turns to him. Alexander begins to have flash backs of the past. How he use to beat her mother, the alcohol abuse and drunken nights. He blinks furiously as he tries to shake the images from his head. The flashbacks become more furious now, of parts of his life he doesn't remember. He sees himself putting red paint on all the pictures, the red writing on the wall. He gets more flashbacks  of beating her mother and seeing her mother hung from their old rope tree swing. He re-reads the messages from his memory, the suicide note she left him which read "You did this". The bridges began to build and he began to piece together who  this Lexi was. All the things which seemed to be Rebecca acting up was really a reflection of his own mental turmoil. His own expression of the guilt he felt for his wife, in which he used Lexi to explore it. He relived flashbacks of pushing Laura down the stairs which explained why she cowered at the sight of him. Lexi was really him. Just then he heard a knock at the door. He opened it to discover the police waiting there. "Mr Hopkins we need you to come down to the station with us one of the officers proclaimed."I'm not Mr Hopkins, my name is Lexi" he replied.