11.2 Treatment (Bible For Abroad) (Proposal) (16.3/4)

LONG FORM TV

Title: Abroad 

Form: My TV show (Abroad) takes on the form of a long form TV show, which means each episode will be more than 45 minutes at least. It is an original TV crime drama, which will initially run for 10 episodes in its first series. It will be released on Amazon Prime, but if the show is successful on that platform it may be broadcast on BBC or ITV.

Genre: Crime, drama.

Locations: Heathrow Airport, London, Miami.

Style: In the flashback scenes which make up a lot of the TV show, there will be a hazy sunshine feel to the show, using colours such as yellows and light browns. This will create a dreamy look to quite a lot the scenes. There will also be occasional blurring to make the flashbacks seem more realistic. When the scenes are set in the present day ('88-'97), the scenes will look just how they would look in real life, with not too much colour editing to how it actually was when it was filmed. When the scenes are in the science labs, there will be a white colour palette to the TV show, as it will make it seem more clinical and sterile. I will make sure the scenes look like they took place in the 90's, by using cars of that period and technology of the 90's.

Product Potential: My TV show's main competitors would be other TV series of the same genre, such as Sherlock, Fargo and Breaking Bad. It has the potential to do well because many people are interested in the crime drama genre, as there have been loads of other TV shows in this genre that have done very well.

Target Audience: The target audience age for my TV show will be people aged 16-50. This is because of the heavy drugs use and the swearing. Although, there is not too much violence in the show or scenes of a sexual nature, it means it should not really be watched by people under the age of 16. I have made the target age end at 50 because I do not think it will appeal to the older generation, as they might not understand the programme and what it's about. It is predominantly aimed at a male audience, although there is definitely a lot of appeal to female viewers as one of the main characters (Mary) is a woman. Again, the target audience will be people that already enjoy the crime drama genre, and want to see something new. It will initially also be aimed at Amazon Prime customers, as it will not be released anywhere else, unless it does well on this platform.

The graph above shows us that drama on TV is very popular, and entertainment in general is the most popular thing people want when they watch TV. My TV show fits into the drama category, which is great as it is a popular genre to watch. This means that my TV show will fit into the current market nicely, and will not be out of place with common trends on television.

The graph above shows viewing habits throughout the year, with week 1 being early January, and week 52 being late December. A we can see from the graph, much more people watch television in the winter months (November - March), as it is cold outside and more people are going to stay in. In the summer months (April - October), the amount of people watching TV is significantly lower than in the winter. I have chosen to release my TV show in around October - November, as around this time people start to stay in and watch more TV. We will also be reaching out to a larger audience releasing it in the winter rather than summer.

Synopsis: Two drug smugglers get caught at Heathrow Airport on arrival back from a trip to Miami. The TV show is a massive flashback of each character's recollection of events in the ten years leading up to their arrest at the airport. Mary and Rob both have a different set of events, which creates tension. The show switches from past to present during each episode, each time cutting back to the present they are back in Heathrow Airport. Each episode is a new year, so after 10 episodes, 10 years will have passed. Each episode of the series will have a new story about a main event that happened that year. In the final episode we will see all the stories the smugglers tell link up to find out the truth about their pasts and if they will be jailed or not. The show has quite a lot of scientific aspects to it as a lot of the sub plots include testing drugs and investigations in lab rooms. 

Character Bio’s:

MARY: Main Character, Main smuggler, 30 years old, has no family to tie her down. She has no partner or any kids, and does not have a permanent home. She doesn’t have much to lose. Mary is no longer in contact with her family, which means she has no connections. She has known Rob since secondary school. Mary was a couple of years above Rob, but their families are friends and they have known eachother for a long time. She has been drug dealing for 11 years, although she has a clear police record. She is a regular girl with medium length hair, she's 6 foot tall, and has a stern look to her. Mary can also be quite bossy and is in control a lot of the time, often leading the way for Rob. After many arguments with her family she decided to leave home and live somewhere else. 

Mary's possible appearance.

ROB: Mary’s sidekick,  who is 28 years old. Rob is about to get married and already has a 2 year old daughter. If he goes to jail he won't see his wife or child, unlike Mary who has no connections. Like Mary, they both do not have a criminal record. He can be slightly dopey and often forgets things easily and Rob is always the reason they get in trouble or have lucky escapes. He is quite casual in how he goes about his everyday life and be portrayed as quite lazy. When Mary and Rob left school they both got into drug dealing. Both Mary and Rob's families are friends and 12 years ago both families went on holiday to Miami. Mary and Rob became interested in the large drugs scene happening there in the late 80's, and dreamed of once coming back together. 

 Rob's possible appearance. 

 

OTHER CHARACTERS:

STEVIE: Chief police officer based at Heathrow. We see him lots in episode 1 and 10, but we see little bits of him throughout the series as we follow his investigations. He is quite strict and stern, and never smiles. Stevie is quite tall and has a short haircut.

CONNOR: Main drug dealer who supplies Mary and Rob and directs them who to sell to. He is in nearly episode and is always under the influence of drugs.

ANNIE: Annie is Rob's girlfriend/wife and is worried about Rob. We see what she gets up to whilst Rob is not home, and she eventually has a little baby daughter later on in the series. 

Episodes:

Episode 1: The smugglers get caught at Heathrow Airport and tell a story about their past. This includes how Mary and Rob met at school and how they became partners in crime. We see flashbacks of their first trip to Miami, which they went on with their families. The episode constantly switches back to scenes at the airport and then to their flashbacks of their youth.(Set in 1997 and 1988)

Episode 2:Story about how they got into drug dealing. We get to see who made them start drug dealing and the dodgy people Mary and Rob hang around with. We also see the pair sell drugs for the first time, and understand why Mary ran away from home. (Set in 1989)

Episode 3: Story about Mary and Rob’s personal life.  We get to see Rob's girlfriend and family and Mary's lack of family. Viewers learn how she is lonely and disappointed with how her life is turning out to be. She believes she has to continue selling drugs to make a living.We learn more about their backgrounds and what they want to do in the future. (Set in 1990)

Episode 4: A story about an adventure in Miami. This is the first time they go to Miami by themselves, as last time they went with their families. They go to all the places they weren't allowed to go when they were young, and they make lots of new friends, both good and bad people, and have a good time. We see a softer side to both characters, and the viewer learns how they never wanted to be criminals and they've made some mistakes. This makes the viewer on Mary and Rob's side. They also learn more about the big drugs scene happening in Miami and take note. (Set in 1991)

Episode 5:  Story about a close call with the police once. Very exciting episode where Mary and Rob only just get out of being caught by the police with tonnes of cocaine from Miami. A big chase scene happens in this episode, and they manage to evade the police. However they begin to think it's easy to escape the police and taking it too far is foreshadowed in this episode. (Set in 1992)

Episode 6: A story about how they obtain the drugs. We get to see the background of what is happening in the characters' lives and begin to learn more about the pair's main drug suppliers. (Set in 1993)

Episode 7: Story about Mary and Rob getting into a bad situation with the gang. The pair fall out with some of the gang that supply them with the drugs, and threaten to kill them if they do not do certain things the gang wants them to do. In the end the gang and Mary and Rob are all back and friends again.(Set in 1994)

Episode 8: Story about how Rob’s wife is about to have a baby. We see family life start to take over Rob's life and compromises his drug dealing. Tension is created between Mary and Rob as Rob becomes more secluded and does not want to do the things he used to do with Mary. However even though Mary knows Rob is about to have a baby, she becomes romantically interested in him, which creates more tension. (Set in 1995)

Episode 9: A story about a trip to Miami to bring back cocaine to England. Mary and Rob set off to Miami for another drug smuggle back to the UK. Rob is apprehensive throughout the whole trip as he has not done this kind of thing for a while and has a weird feeling it is not going to go right. He is becoming increasingly annoyed by Mary who is trying to ruin Rob and his wife's relationship, so she can be with him. The episode ends with them getting on a plane back to London, annoyed at each other. (Set in 1996)

Episode 10: Final hours before they get caught at Heathrow. The pair land at Heathrow and immediately get apprehended by police. They get caught and make excuses about what happened. Both of the characters tell their side of the story. The final scene is the first scene of Episode 1. (Set in 1997)

Moodboard

HEATHROW AIRPORT

MIAMI

SCIENCE LAB

LONDON

TIME PERIOD (1988-1997)

DRUGS

11.2

Treatment

Working title: Darklands 

Synopsis

Darklands is a period crime drama. The show revolves around two main protagonists Adam Sawyer and Eve parker, who are detectives that have been assigned to a case concerning the disappearance of a girl named Camille Moriarty. The case sends the detectives away from their comfortable positions in the Cambridge police force to a small rural village in the fens. At first the village seems normal but through a series of odd vignettes and encounters with villagers strangely reluctant to answer various questions its revealed that something much more sinister is going on than they initially thought. Throughout the series there are various plot points that keep the audience interested such as the ongoing tension between the two protagonists and the various mysteries being solved that always seem to leave us asking more questions.

Outline of form

Darklands is a longform original crime drama that will be aired on Netflix and Amazon Prime. It will have an approximate runtime of 45 minutes. It will run for a total of 10 episodes and follow a serial narrative structure. 

Content and style

Darklands is a thrilling crime drama inspired by shows such as the X Files, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Twin Peaks. It will have a dark and eerie atmosphere atmosphere. The show will be full of shots of the fens on overcast foggy days to create the desolate and remote mood. The show will have many recurring themes, but the main theme is the idea of the strange village mentality that comes with living in remote location. The show focuses on the idea of a close-knit community that hasn't changed for many years and rarely has visitors. The villagers treat the protagonists in vary strange ways making it very clear that they are not wanted. The fact that the village is so remote leads viewers to believe that sinister and illegal thing have been going on long before the detectives arrived.

Market Position

Darklands is a similar show to shows like True Detective and The Wire, so I hope to build on the audience of these kinds of dark crime/dramas. As there are none of these show already available on Netflix or Amazon prime Darklands will fill a gap in the marketplace, and hopefully attract more people to subscribe to these services in the process.

Target audience

My main target audience would be 12 plus due to some of the moral and ethical issues covered  as well as some of the violence. However i want to try to keep the rating as low as possible to make sure its accessible to children/younger teenagers as i think this will be one of the main audiences. Darklands caters to a large age bracket. The show provides a fast paced eerie, surreal world for its younger viewers, whilst offering a more mature audience a dramatic storyline between two protagonists and underlying metaphorical themes that create  complex and multi layered plot.

Episode breakdown

Episode 1: "Paradise lost"
In episode 1 a small town in the east of England is shaken up when a young girl, Camille Moriarty goes missing under mysterious circumstances. Police investigators Adam Kowalski and Eve Sawyer are called by the local chief of police tom cooper when a school friend of Camille's is found dead by a farmer in the fens. Agent Kowalski believes to find a connection between the two cases and a case he investigated two years prior, after he finds a similar marking on the girls lower back. Kowalski believes that the same killer may strike again. At the end of the episode we see Camille's mum wake up from a terrible nightmare depicting a long haired man laughing manically.

Episode 2: "The one with chandler"
In episode 2 agent Sawyer finds out that Camille had a secret boyfriend named Chandler Bing. She arrests him and questions him. Meanwhile agent Kowalski discovers that Camille's therapist may have something to do with her disappearance. At the end of the episode we see Chandler and Camille's best friend Trisha vow to solve the mystery of Camille's murder.

Episode 3: "God is dead"
Episode 3 begins with Chandler and Trisha trying to solve the case in the form of a montage. After the montage we return to a more conventional series of shots observing the pair question various character from the village. At the end of the episode we see the pair collecting their evidence. when there collecting the evidence Trisha drops a piece of paper and when both of them go to pick up the paper their hands meet. This is how the episode ends.

Bold=key scene in detail.

Episode 4: "Time after Time"

This episode starts 20 years in the future. in the opening seen we see the majority of the characters from the first 3 episodes standing in black suits in the rain holding black umbrellas obviously attending some kind of funeral. After this initial shot the camera pans to a grave stone bearing the name Adam Kowalski, there is then a sudden flash of lightning and loud roar of thunder. After this camera pans up to the sky and Cindi Luaper's time after time begins to play.  A flashback then begins explaining Kowalskis death. It reveals He gets too invested in the case and begins to go insane. One night he went out to solve the case and never returned. His body was never found but all evidence pointed towards his death. He was pronounced dead on the 18 may 2000.

Episode 5 "The passion of christ"

The camera pans down and shows Agent Sawyer tied to a chair, she looks to her left, her new partners lifeless corpse lying beside her on the wet and dirty warehouse floor. As Sawyer looks around hopelessly trying to figure out how to escape, she hears a loud thud and hears a car engine start, she looks forward and sees the blinding headlights of the car, driving towards her, she screams and as the car gets close, the shot ends and it jumps back in time and has super imposed text across the screen saying "2 Days later". We see Sawyer waking up in a hospital ward bed with a blatant heavy bruise on her forehead.

Episode 6 "Fire in the confession booth"

She wakes up in a hospital bed, restrained. Sawyer panics and frantically tries to shake them loose. She has no luck budging the bed. She screams and shouts, hoping someone will come to her aid. She sees the long haired man look through the window on her door. She goes ballistic. A nurse charges in and sedates Sawyer.

Episode 7 "Circle theorem"

 The nurse hears her cries for help and runs in through the long haired man to aid Eve and make sure she's alright. Sawyer tries to explain to the nurse about the long haired man, but the nurse dismisses her talk and tells her to stay and rest in bed. Sawyer feels like a million bucks right now.

Episode 8 "Secrets of the guardians"

Sawyer awakens from her sleep and feels much better, she tries to get out of bed and manages to successfully start walking again without support but starts to think about the long haired man and has deep pains in her head and starts to have a fit. She gets restrained. Nurses surround Sawyer. She frantically looks around the room in panic. She sees the long haired man. She stares into his empty, lifeless eyes. His eyes flicker with fire. The episode ends.

Episode 9 "Manipulated living"
The episode begins first person from sawyers perspective. Her eyes open. Theres smoke swarming out of the open window, Sawyer knows that she's in trouble! The door creeks open, slowly. Sawyer can smell the foul stench that the man carries. She can hear his miserable moans. She can feel his presence in the room. Sawyer climbs to her feet and looks into the mirror. She see's him behind her in the reflection. She scream "What do you want with me!?". The smoke engulfs her. All you can hear is heavy breathing and the constant sound of a heart beating.

Episode 10 "The physical impossibility of death in the mind of the living"

Sawyer compares herself to the longhaired man, she see's similarities between them both. She cautiously drapes her hair over her eye, she has an eye patch. She rapidly looks at herself and the long haired man. He disappears. She flicks her hair back over and sees that she has become a man! She releases a manly roar in terror. She grabs a scalpel and starts to cut her hair off. The faster she cuts it the faster it grows back. She becomes overwhelmed by her own hair and cries out. Fire fighters run in and see her, covered in hair. They lift her up and run out. She struggles and wants to be left behind. She only wants to die. She draws the scalpel from her sleeve and stabs the firefighter in the throat. Blood gushes out and blinds the other man. She screams and run deeper into the burning building. To this day her body was never recovered and no one know where she is and how she escaped. To this day children still claim to see the long haired WO-man in their rooms at night.

11.1 the sod script analysis

The Sod

style

The script focuses on dialogue and there is very little of anything else apart from the odd stage direction. This differs from a film script where there would usually be more focus on scene description.

Content

The content of the script is predominantly dialogue 

Narrative structure

The story is all dialogue led. The scene is set through the use of sound various sound effects.The dialogue could arguably be described as unnatural at some points as they have to be more descriptive.

Genre

The genre of radio shows id often harder to define However this particular show seems to be a comedy drama

11.1 Little Miss Sunshine script analysis

Style/content: The script is much less dialogue driven than radio and sets up the story more through the description of the characters surroundings and imagery.

Narrative structure: Within the first ten minutes of the script all of the main characters have been introduced however in a tv show such as game of thrones only a few of the recurring characters had been introduced by this point. Due to the time constraints of a feature film the characters need to be introduced early so there is time for the plot to develop where as a tv show has more time to explore each character and set up the main story arc.

Genre
The genre of the film is a comedy drama/ adventure road trip film.

Target audience 
The  Movies target audience for an audience aged 45+ . The movies humour appeals to a more mature audience.

Content 
The Hoover family decides to make the trip from Albuquerque to Southern California after starry-eyed daughter Olive (Abigail Breslin) unexpectedly scores a spot in the regional Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant.