Treatment: Life's Playground

A harmonica plays in the background as we get a view of a neighborhood street with a park a few steps away. A narrator comments that “not all summer afternoons are filled with fun and freedom. Take it from me, I know from experience.” A kid is being picked on by 3 guys. Jared walks along the street and sees them.

Flashback to a scene where a little kid who looks like Jared is also being picked on in the same park. They are taunting him the same way that the older guys are taunting the kid Jared sees.
We return to the present and Jared starts walking over to the scene. The guys look up at him and the one who appears to be in charge comes forward, asking him what he wants.

Before the guy can finish his sentence, Jared takes a swing at him and knocks him to the ground. He looks briefly at him and then walks on to the next guy. He takes him out as well. He walks on to the last guy who’s holding the kid by the collar.

Jared grabs the guy’s wrist and wrenches his grip loose, punching him in the stomach. The guy collapses. He takes up the lead bully again and punches him in the face, sending him flying.

Flashback cuts in as the guy is flying to Jared-kid flying backwards. The bully is picking on a younger Jared. Time mixes and Jared is preying on his younger self. He realizes that something is amiss, but he continues to act out his role and pick on his younger self.

His younger self cries out “why won’t you leave me alone?” time flashes back to the past and a bully is standing where Jared was standing before. The bully advances on Jared-kid.

Time flashes back to the present and Jared crouches over the bully and places one hand on his throat and raises the other hand in a fist. The bully is struggling to breath.

We get an intense look of Jared’s eyes as he struggles with himself and we are taken back into a flashback.

The bullies are pinning Jared down and one of them is about to drool onto his face. He is trying desperately to free himself but he is unsuccessful.

Rapid cuts between past and present: the drool falling onto his face and Jared-older punching in the bullies face.

The screen is black and we hear the narrator’s voice along with the harmonica playing in the background. “Sometimes you have absolutely no control of those summer afternoons.”

The Jared is revealed sweeping the streets with a cop standing by, watching him. Jared is wearing handcuffs. There is a student reporter walking next to him with a pen and open notepad.

The voice comes back: “Actually, you always have control.” It becomes apparent that it is Jared’s voice. He speaks as he is sweeping the street. “Your choices affect what you do tomorrow. You got to think before you act, you know what I mean? The guy didn’t die nor nothing, but like, that didn’t matter to the judge you know? He said this wasn’t a game. Lemme tell you, when you’ve got three years of this ahead of you, you realize how easy it woulda been to not hit that guy.”

The screen fades to black with the sounds of the street still audible. The credits fade in and out. “It woulda been really easy, now that I think about it…”

-Fade-

The Dramatic Moment

I would have to say that in my short film, my character would be a high school guy, possibly a pretty big guy. I want him to be a guy because when i portray his confusion, I want it to almost have the feel of him having an anger management problem, but not quite. And i feel like if it would be a woman playing the part, it would be distasteful to the audience and would be a turn off.

My character is confused and conflicted. He wants an answer or some form of guidance but there is no one to help him, so he has to turn to himself and rely on his own judgment to make the right choice.

Should he choose to punch the bully's face in, he would ultimately corrupt his character and forever taint what he was doing through moral convictions. But on the flip side, if he refrains from giving in to the temptation, he rises above the challenge and crystalizes his morality and yet at the same time, breaks the cycle of violence he became entangled in.

When it comes to the dramatic moment itself, we have our main character, come upon a scene of bullying. He remembers how he was bullied and decides to continue to strive for vengence. But in this scene, he stumbles on another act of bullying, and this time, it's too much for him. He is about to deal a blow that will kill the bully and he is faced with the moral dilemma of either doing it or not. The dramatic moment should focus on his confliction. I think that I might want to introduce a parental figure that could have passed away, appear to him in his mind and discourage him from corrupting himself further.

I am debating whether or not to make this a tragic plot or not. If it ould be, I would like to include some allusion to the bible, how Jesus took upon himself the sins of humanity and was crucified to cleanse humanity. If not, I would like to allude to Lazarus's rise from the dead, as in our character's redemption.

Some things to consider... I'll be sure to post my approved treatment when I get it done.

Plots that Kill

A plot line I would like to take the time to look at is the Moral Plot.

This plot line is used by the movie Chinatown. In Chinatown, there is a morality tale that is being played out concerning corruption and its fluctuating presence in society. This film noir implements this plot line to conform to its genre conventions of social criticism. It also places emphasis on the main character's moral dilemma, not only being a PI, but having a bad reputation as a PI without the power of the police to stop evil.

When it comes to a story of my own, I was thinking about using a story that follows the tale of the cycle of violence and how to break it. A kid is picked on during his childhood and as soon as he becomes stronger during high-school, he decides to turn his new strength on the bullies, helping out other kids who are picked on, yet going overboard and almost killing them. This story will deal with the theme of the cycle of violence and I don't know if it will be a unique take on the plot, but it should be interesting. I'm going to try to focus profoundly on his inner turmoil and I haven’t decided yet whether or not to try to connect it to society as a whole, depending on how much time I have.

I definitely envision a high schooler, probably a big guy acting, with a little skinny kid acting as his younger self. I see the character as male because seeing a woman in this role will probably be a turnoff, seeing as violent women are generally discomforting to watch, especially if it looks like they have an anger problem.

I'd say my character is definitely dealing with trying to find a balance in his life. All in one moment, he is conflicted with taking the path of vengeance or the higher road. I want to try to capitalize on that emotion.

I still haven’t decided yet whether he will come out virtuous or not, but if he does, it will be saying that the cycle of violence can be broken and that people can learn to live with one another.

For now, the details of my plot are a little sketchy, but I do want to make my plot unique in some way that will have a twist at the end, and leave the audience with a feeling of emotional closeness, being saddened by my film's end.