My thriller - Creating the treatment

During the lesson today i achieved a great deal.

• I pitched the treatment to my teacher, I got given the green light to go ahead with the idea. The outline of the treatment is as follows:

 A protagonist, that of a middle-aged father living with his son, is sleeping in his bed. We begin to see his dream about his deceased wife and the audience quickly realises that she had drowned during a vacation trip. 

The father wakes up suddenly and makes his way straight to his son's room. He presses his ear to his son's door but it is quiet. 

Thinking his son is asleep, the father makes his way to the bathroom-he sees a glimpse of his wife at the sink. After hearing a distant female scream, he rushes to his son's room, this time opening the door only to find he is not there. 

He immediately rushes downstairs, noticing that someone has been in the kitchen. The protagonist walks outside and, having an instinct, runs deep into the garden. 

He stops. Snippets of his dream are shown and the father walks forward slowly-the camera shows his feet stepping near to photos of his wife on the ground. His eyes suggest the impossible has become possible.

• I brainstormed how to create the signs that the man is either still dreaming or that something supernatural is afoot.

- the man is awoken by the odd dream. It is almost as if he has been disturbed by someone in the room.

- there are several connections with the strange 'supernatural' signs and the protagonist. The vision of his wife in the bathroom, the scream, the steaming saucepan, the radio and the photos on the floor will make the event surreal.

• I worked on establishing the back story of how the man's wife drowned. Cultural codes:

  The willow was part of mourning poetry created in the 19th century by women to commemorate the death of a loved one. The Celtics also believed that if you come across a willow you will find your dreams will immediately become more vivid and meaningful.

 In Act 4 Scene 7, Queen Gertrude, in her monologue (There is a willow grows aslant the brook), reports that Ophelia had climbed into a willow tree, and then a branch broke and dropped Ophelia into the brook, where she drowned.

 Ophelia "Death of a Mayfly" by deerdancer