Treatment and Style

Treatment
It’s nighttime. Narration is heard overhead. We see four men in a dimly lit room playing poker at a table, with poker chips, cards, and beer everywhere. Bill and Ed are on opposite sides of the table, with Bill up against a wall. The Franks sit either side of them. Maria is next to Ed, flirting with him. We see Jonesy walking down a dimly-lit driveway, past the sunroom door, and then sneaking into Ed’s room and starting to search the place. Jonesy notices a safe, and opens it.

At the poker game, Ed asks Maria to leave on account of 'business to take care of'. She leaves, and Bill watches her go. Ed then ends the game to reveal he knows all about Bill and his operation. The goons leap up and restrain Bill, and they discuss the matter of his execution. Maria heads back to Ed’s room, and finds Jonesy has opened the safe. She seduces Jonesy, and using his pistol, kills him. She takes the medallion for herself and calls the police.

Ed becomes paranoid of police enforcements entering his house, and leaves the others to find out what’s happened at the other end of the house. He finds Maria holding a pistol, who is acting suspiciously. Maria slams the bedroom door on Ed, and reveals she’s called the police and that they’ll be there any minute. Ed swears to harm or kill her, and bursts through the door. Maria escapes with the medallion into the night. Ed leaves in a hurry, telling the goons to kill Bill.

Bill fights off the goons, shooting them before leaving. He manages to escape as far as the driveway, where he finds Ed’s corpse on the ground, and armed police aiming right at him. The police are not seen, but strongly implied by the flashing lights. As he raises his hands in a guilty surrender (gun still in hand) the scene fades to black, and the title appears.


Style
I'm aiming for a pessimistic/nihilistic film. It needs to be dark and moody, and envoke anxiety in the audience. I am going to achieve this by colour grading the film to be black-and-white with very minimal lighting, lots of shadows, and having my story twist for the worse of the characters involved. All characters are killed off, other than Bill and Maria, Maria being the antagonist in many ways makes her survival negative. Bill is left to be shot or arrested for crimes he did not commit, which goes with this nihilism. The style is meant to be film noir, so the events need to feel trapping, and the characters need to be as shifty as possible. There should be saxophone music that reflects moodiness, sexuality, and depression. Acting should be aggressive, and there should be a sinister atmosphere. There's a streetlight down our driveway, which looks great at night, so I might use that to give the film a tinge of city/urban style. I'll remove as much of the time inconsistancies as possible, so that the film has a 40s vibe to it, though I know some elements are impossible to change, and so there will be the odd eerie link to the present. Hopefully this will be either unnoticeable or disturbing, rather than irritatingly 'wrong'. I'm aiming for bleak and panicy.

Things I'll do for effects:

• Low angles to make Ed look big and mean.
• High angles on the poker game to show perspective (they will be surrounded by the darkness of the walls and background/floor - nihilism/entrapment).
• A tracking shot of Maria's hand as she takes Jonesy's pistol. This builds suspense and shows an obvious double-crossing, as per the genre.
• First shot of the streetlight, pan down, have Jonesy walk in and stop, looking like a silhouette. Gives him the 'literal identity of a dead man walking', and provides a use of shadow. Looks very moody.
• Edit in a narration with sax music to create a moody atmosphere.
• Cut between Jonesy and the poker game to show they take place concurrently.
• Close-up on people's faces to show emotion - usually serious or angry. When Ed strangles Bill would be a good time to use this.
• Vary angles for smoothness of shot progression (when cutting but keeping the audio going). Also provides interest.
• Have everyone in formal clothing, as per the style of the 1940s - Maria and Bill are the only ones not wearing black (funeral?) - they are also the only ones not to die.
• Setting needs to be messy and full of typical gang stuff. Poker table is very iconic, and will work with chips and cards and possibly alcohol present.
• Vary framing - have some wide angled shots to show the scene (especially when moving from one place to another), but have lots of tight framing when dialogue is being interchanged.
• Loud gunshot sound effects and a lot of blood in gunshots shot. This will show how gritty the film is. It's meant to be serious and dark, and quiet gunshots with minimal blood would look silly. Having said that, subtle is always nice. Might experiment with amount of blood.
• Hand-held effect is realistic and gritty, and this is exaggerated in the shot where Bill runs out of the house, which will be a shaky POV for extra suspense.
• Slow-mo shot of Ed's death, with Bill running out behind him. Very striking, goes with nihilism. It breaks the tension of the faster-paced shots before it. Finish with a static shot of Bill raising his hands, with the police lights flaring everywhere.
• In Jonesy's entrance to the house, I want to have subtle obscurrances. Trees, branches, leaves, parts of the house, etc just slighting obscurring the shot for tension - looks almost as if he's being watched.
• I want another shot of Jonesy post-mortem just for extra realism. Seeing a recurrance of the seduction scene, this time with a disgruntled Ed and deceased Jonesy would be a nice contrast and an video-effect-less way of showing the aftermath of his encounter with Maria.
• Reduce lighting as much as possible for extra noir effect. Increase the shadows and highlights, but keep everything else low-lit. Matches the Noir style and nihilism.
• Set the film at night for the above reason.
• Cut between shots. Transitions look tacky, and I don't like them. I can jump back in time to Maria walking down the hall to make it obvious that the poker game and seduction take place at the same time. The reaction from the gunshot will re-establish this.
• Make sure ambient music and acting match - be serious and consistant with dark theme.