Questionnaire Results

Questionaire results media from Gita2000

Pre-production Questionaire (paper)

Character Profiles

Location Shots

Location one- School corridor.
Here we need to film a shot of a crowd of people walking around Zachary who is our main character, we thought this would be a good place as it's spacious enough and a quiet corridor therefore not many people will be interfering whilst we film.

                 Location two- Zachary's bedroom.

We decided to use this room as the decoration is quite simple with white walls and white brick wallpaper. Therefore this gives us the chance to change the bedroom to how we want it to suit Zachary's personality, on the day of shooting we will change the bedding to a more simple pattern and accessorise the bedroom with our chosen props.

 

Location three- Classroom
We chose this classroom rather than a computer classroom as I will be easier to get shots from different angles of where Zachary is looking. During the classroom scene there is a lot of panning shots and shots from behind and in front of Zachary to portray emotion and this classroom gives us the room we need to do that.

Location four- School staircase

Location five- School hall

Location six- Park
We decided to use this park as it matches the aesthetic for our film, it has a lot of trees and we plan to film in winter so the trees will be sparse which matches the dark nature of our film. The park location is not far from our college either meaning it will be easy to film in lessons.

Treatment.

Title- Outcast


Duration- approximately 5 minutes.

Audience- The age range of our audience would be between 15-30, and would be targeted at a young age group that would be able to relate to teenage characters and the setting of a high school. The audience would also have an interest in supernatural themes and an interest in dark magic.


certificate- 15 (contains imitable behaviour and swearing)

distributor- Arrow films 


Synopsis- The film starts with the introduction of the main character of our film, Zachary Dernes. Zachary is seen as an outcast of society, picked on throughout his adolescence for being 'weird' and 'quiet', leading him to have a particularly angry outlook on society, with no friends or positive experiences with others around him.  

Zachary is first seen standing in a school corridor, and a boy walks into him, and laughs as Zachary remains emotionless, showing he is used to it. The scene then cuts to Zachary sitting in his small bedroom, filled with little but a single bed and a computer, he seems in deep thought and moves to his desk where his computer is. Due to his hatred of others and interest in the practice of supernatural abilities, Zachary begins to investigate a particular strand of 'dark magic'-the ability of whatever the individual writes down to become reality. Zachary starts to research into the ability, by going onto websites and reading of past attempts and its dark origins. In his room, he copies down website names and theories restlessly.

This then leads him to investigate his research further, visiting a library in order to improve his knowledge of the practice. The library is small, but filled with many books, and a middle age librarian walked over to him, seeming impatient and annoyed. However, the librarian (like many others) regards Zachary as a strange 'freak', questioning his reasoning for wanting to know such things and claiming it to be stupid and a ridiculous theory. Nevertheless, Zachary borrows the book, and begins to try out the strand of magic. Meanwhile, Zachary's social life is quickly worsening, with people continuing to tease him to the point of breaking, and his anger and hatred at the world grows as just as quick. Finally, we see Zachary 'break' while in a lesson. He is shown sitting by himself in the classroom, when the teacher leaves and the room is left unsupervised. A ring leader of a group of bullies begins to pick on him, causing everyone else to join in, leading to a commotion. In his angered panic, Zachary as a last resort writes in his old notebook one last time, writing 'STOP'- except this time, it works. Zachary looks up to find that time itself has stopped, and everyone is frozen within time except him, allowing him to escape the situation and confirming his practice has worked. 

This encourages him, after mastering the ability, to continue the practice by messing with peers, making them spill drinks on themselves, making them trip over nothing and repeatedly banging their heads their desks. Zachary seems to become mad with power and enjoys the control he now has over his peers. However, as Zachary's intentions become more and more drastic, he notices that some of his commands in the book start to become hit and miss. This causes Zachary to begin to loose control. 

He enters school the next day, going to the park as usual for break, and sees the bully smiling and laughing with friends. The bully then walks past him and purposefully trips up and blames Zachary. This causes the bully's friends to call Zachary names. Zachary then snaps mentally and starts choking the bully by writing it in the book. The bully falls onto the floor panicking and Zachary gets up and walks towards him. Zachary then gets angrier and writes 'DIE' in big letters. However it is revealed the boy is fine and no longer choking. This makes Zachary flip out and look around for a reason as to why his power stopped. Then is when it is revealed to the audience that someone else have also obtained Zachary's ability, and have been watching him closely. Zachary notices a girl in a red coat looking at him and writing in the same book he has. When she notices that she has been seen, she begins to write quicker and rips a page out of the book that is full of writing. It becomes clear that this girl is ultimately the reason for many of Zachary's wishes to not come true, saving the bully's life by undoing what Zachary writes, rewriting it herself. She uses her gift for good and stops Zachary from carrying out some of his darker ideas, with Zachary in great confusion and the girl in the background changing fate without his knowledge. The audience never sees the girl's face, however Zachary does.He notices what she writing, and suddenly realises what she is doing, and is furious. In his mad panic he storms towards her. The girl sees him almost running towards her, and (as before) quickly scribbles 'STOP' in her own notebook. Zachary is stopped in his tracks and freezes. Our films ends with Zachary ultimately being physically stopped from carrying out his practices, ironically by the same phrase he began with.


Suggested elements- Montages, elements of dark humour, supernatural themes and plot surrounded around the high school experience of an outcast teenage boy.