Treatment

Genre: Socio-realism

Subject: Youth culture

The film I am promoting through my trailer falls into the genre of youth pictures. More specifically, it depicts the misadventures of a 17-year-old youth as he struggles to construct his identity in rural Cornwall – an adult dominant population that could be considered ‘behind the times’ and ‘old fashioned.’ Cameron is desperate to escape his council estate background and experience life outside the county he finds stifling and lacking in opportunities (both social and economic). Key obstacles he faces includes; his possessive mother who has dependency issues due to his father leaving 15 years ago, his so-called ‘mates’ who seem hell-bent on ruining his university chances and his tutor that just doesn’t seem to notice.

Like many British social-realist pictures that have come before it this film sets out to challenge many stereotypes. In this case, the image of Cornwall being simply a beautiful tourist destination is just one.

The film explores a different side of life for teenagers. Most socio-realism films focussing on teenagers fixate themselves on the inner-city youth of London, ignoring the other options. Those that don’t are usually comedies, so this film is taking a fresh approach to a tired genre.

The film was inspired by various other films of the same genre and explores many issues related to youth culture that we have worked on from our AS case studies, including violent crime, drugs and masculinity in crisis.

The shots will be choreographed to present two distinct sides of the main character: the night scenes will show the darker side of the protagonist; his misdeeds and anger come to the fore more often at night. The day scenes show him as a nicer character, although forced to deal with the consequences of his actions during the night, giving it a rather melancholic feel and slower pace to contrast the more action-orientated night scenes.

Filming will take place at various locations at different times of the day, creating a very different experience of the same area. For example, the town or beach during the day would be a much more pleasant place than the

The film will be shot on a very low budget and everyone involved will have to work for free and the props will have to very cheap – fortunately, the film features only a handful of characters and the props are mainly things that you would expect a student to have, making them inexpensive and easy to get hold of. As a result, funding from the college will most likely be enough to cover the expenses (see financial information for detail).

I am open to any comments or critique that will help to improve the project.

Thank you.