‘Punishment’ Script Treatment

When FREDDIE (lead character) wakes up, he has no memory of his life. When Freddie tries to find answers, he notices everyone is filming him. When Freddie thinks he can’t get anymore confused, a woman, wearing a white shirt, black trousers and a white plastic mask with a question mark on it tries to kill him. A woman named EMMA saves Freddie and tells him about a new phone network, ‘Drill’, that has brainwashed half the populations making them want to film the suffering of others.

Act 1: Freddie wakes up not knowing whom he is, people are filming him and he is getting flashbacks of a teenage girl.

Act 2: A female in a white mask tries shooting Freddie

Act 3: Emma, a stranger to Freddie, saves him from the masked women and tells him about ‘Drill’

Act 4: Freddie gets captured and gets told terrible news about himself.

I have made ‘Punishment’ a ‘Tragedy Drama’, the genre specifications of a ‘Tragedy Drama’ is that there are normally a downfalls to do with the main character and it’s caused by a flaw within themselves. A ‘Tragedy Drama’ sometimes puts the character in extraordinary circumstances; this genre is really about the self-destructive behaviour of the character. The flaws of the character come out and usually result in death or some other forms of suffering.

Freddie is an 18-year-old, male, that has no memory of who he is. He is scared and confused from what he has waken up to and is having flashbacks of a girl that he seems to know but cant remember how.

Emma is a 20-year-old, female; she saves Freddie from a mysterious female with a gun. Emma is confident and determined; she wants to get Freddie safely to ‘Drills’ signal to take it out.

The Host is an unnamed character that is male and about 20-years-old. I would describe his personality to be similar to ‘The Jigsaw Killers’ from ‘Saw’. The Host is mysterious and wants vengeance from something that did not involve him; he is a passionate character that people look up to.

‘Punishment’ is confusing, and has a twist, which will shock the audience.The unique selling point of Punishment is how it keeps the audience in the dark until the end, you think you know what is happening but then everything changes.

For when Freddie just wakes up I would like to have a crane shot. I want to have a similar shot to what the video on the link below shows from 1:35-1:43. It will

start off as a wide shot, seeing Freddie on a chair, with his arms dangling off of each arm and his head falling off the back of it, you will see all the drugs on the floor and the room being a mess. The Crain will then get in closer to Freddie’s face until it’s a close up then he will wake up.https://vimeo.com/12263124

When you first see the mysterious masked woman there will be a long shot similar to the one in Nightmare on Elm Street, The masked woman will walk towards the camera, slowly. The long shot will switch to a midshot of Freddie trying to focus in on who the woman is, the camera will switch back to a close up of the masked woman’s face and her pulling the gun to the camera which will be out of focus and then become focused, an example of this would be the screenshot below of Die Hard.

The target audience would be 16-40 year olds. I came to this conclusion because my drama involves new technology throughout the story, a large percentage of the elderly would not care or get confused about new technology so they might not be able to follow the plotline and kids under the age of 16 might also get confused by the plotline or even get scared by it. Another reason my drama would not be suited for under 16 year olds would be because it might include a lot of swearing. I think my target gender would probably be males, males are more proven to enjoy watching violence more than women. Most of the characters are also female which will bring males because the female actresses may be attractive.