treatment for horror film

1. Nikon Ahmed, Ben Goldstone, Sammy Dwyer and George Kabasubabo Koni
Working Title:
Anathema
Proposed Duration: The horror movie that we will filming will be approximately 7-10
minutes long.
Completion Deadline: The deadline we are expecting it to be released is Friday the 13th
October 2017
Genre: Horror
Target Audience: Our target audience is 15-19 year olds. We have chosen this as our main
target audience because we conducted a questionnaire and the main interviewed group was
composed by 17-24 years olds so this is the range of audience we are going to aim at as they
are the ones who are most likely to watch and like horror films. Our secondary audience is
people who may be relatives of those in our target audience, they can be attracted in many
ways, firstly by having actors that they tend to like as they usually see these actors in their
most viewed products and secondly by the message of the film as although it is dedicated to
teenagers it can still relate to an older audience as they as well might have kids who are
probably not aware of online and safety roles.
Background: The reason why our production company have chosen to create this horror film
is because we feel that the genre has a large market audience (as it is one of, if not THE most
popular movie genre to date). We are creating this film as our debut film because we want to
get our production well recognised in the horror film industry. One of the reasons why horror
films are famous is because of the message they leave behind for their audiences. For
example, the message behind The Poltergeist (1982) was that family always (or are supposed
to) stick together, look after each other and have each other’s backs. The message we are
trying to convey to our audience is about online and personal safety because nowadays there
are more acts such as Catfish and other impersonation crimes. We went out and conducted
research into our horror fans. With the results and the conversations we’ve had with those
fans of horror, we believed that our storyline would best suit the style. Our USP is the shed
and the use of specific props such as metal chains. We feel like the majority of the short films
that are being planned now will be based on woods and forests mainly with the style being
found footage and the variety of location and unique props we will be using will make our
product stand out differently than others. Also the fact that one of the main subgenres of our
short film will be psychological we will have a more unique product as not everyone has this
genre featured.

2. Nikon Ahmed, Ben Goldstone, Sammy Dwyer and George Kabasubabo Koni
Research: Before the filming we will be searching for
locations to use. These will mainly consist of gloomy dark
locations to fit with the conventions of the genre. Again
with the costumes and props we will be choosing dark
clothing, nothing too bright, and for the props we will use
items that look either dangerous such as the murder weapon or uncomfortable. we want the
outfits to suit the genre of the film so it looks good. We will have to research if there’s any
applicable laws before doing the film ( terms of service, fair use etc). Before coming up with
our idea we went out and filled out a questionnaire to find out what our audience would
potentially want to see. As well as this we went and watched various horror movies to
analyse them and to see where they succeeded and where they went wrong. Researching is a
very important for the film because it gives us the advantage to look up things that we need
for the film and what will attract the audience. Also, based on our research, the main
locations where we will be filming at will be:
- A shed
- News agent
- Forest (Epping)
- Buckhurst hill park
- House
And some of the location are owned by us so there is no need for permission to film there,
whereas for locations such as public parks or forests are different as they are public places
and we don’t permission to film as long as we don’t include other people in the actual
footage. We’ve chosen these locations because they add a sense of realism and fear as our
product is set in concrete locations. If we are not going to get permission or we are just not
going to be able to film in the chosen locations we can still arrange other public parks that are
not as crowded allowing us a more fluent footage and as parks are public it will be easier to
get permission to film.
Other research we have done includes analysing other famous horror films which are The
Quarantine and The Conjuring 2 which present many conventional elements and other
features that we can take example from; we’ve chosen these two films for part of our research
because they are really different from each other, both story and style based and this gave us
some good ideas on how to develop a film with conventional horror elements.
Synopsis: The story opens with Simon and his online friend George playing PS4 together
online. Later Simon gets a phone call from George quickly telling him to meet him and other
guy up, but when he goes to respond the call cuts off. Using an app, Simon tracks George’s
phone and finds him somewhere strange outside of where. Simon leaves the house to
investigate what happened to George. After walking for awhile Simon starts to get a strange
feeling as he’s being followed and at one point stops and looks back to see if there was
anyone. When Simon finally finds George’s phone on the floor, he finds it with a broken
screen. Before Simon has time to fully understand what has happened he is jumped by a
mysterious figure. After a cut to black Simon wakes up in a shed tied up next to George but
this time he's different. Simon tries to talk to George, but George blankly looks at his with

3. Nikon Ahmed, Ben Goldstone, Sammy Dwyer and George Kabasubabo Koni
wide eyes. After some time passes the shed door opens and
matt appears in the doorway holding his hand made mace.
Some time passes and we get to Simon and George in the
shed looking weak, terrorised and feral. Matt takes both
the prisoners to the woods to kill them. whilst sadistically
killing george Simon manages to escape and Matt starts chasing after him through the woods,
but at some point Simon trips over twice and gets dragged in the dark.
This synopsis focuses on the main message we are trying to convey to the audience which is
that teenagers shouldn't be breaking online health and safety rules and we feel like this
message is relevant to the society nowadays as internet is part of every teenager’s life so
therefore as these young people are not aware of the existence of online health and safety
rules they often times break them without even realising it. Due to this our message is a
reminder for those to respect these rules that young society goes against to nowadays; this
message will also be useful for a more adult audience as they as well might have children
who are not conscious of online safety rules who need their parents to teach them how to
behave against internet in some scenarios.
Style: The style of the film will be serious but mainly to make people scared and to show
them that you should never go out alone late at night responding to strange messages. We
will aim to create a tense mood and atmosphere during the film by drawing scenes out and
having slow movements quickly changed to fast ones. However throughout the storyline
there will be different moods created so as to make sure the audience doesn't become to sick
of the same style. We want to make our horror film as realistic as possible as we want our
audience to (try to) relate themselves or empathise with what they will watch.
Due to the serious style of the horror film also the music will play an important role and for
some soundtracks we will be using we will include the YouTube link of the original video
where we got the track from to give credit to the artist who made it, obviously if the artist
does not agree with just giving him credit by listing the links we will not include its
soundtracks, but apart from that we also have a musician in our group who is part of a band
and they are willing to create soundtracks for our product as they have already had many
years of experience in the music context.
Approximate budget requirements: The film we are producing is a short film, meaning that
our budget requirements will not be as large as it would be if we or another company were to
make a regularly-lengthened film (1 hr 30 minute approximately). As we are making a short
film, we do not need too much money for the film; as a group we are asking for a budget
allowance of £4k for our short horror movie. The budget allowance we receive will be
invested into things such as our equipment, crew, actors/actresses, props & scenery, post-
production and anything else that we will need to help with the production of our content.
Previous work: All members have had some past experiences in the making of a media
product and some of us even had the chance to do multiple products which means that we all
have some background experience. We all made a music video and some of us a short horror

4. Nikon Ahmed, Ben Goldstone, Sammy Dwyer and George Kabasubabo Koni
film in the past giving us an advantage over other groups.
Some of the previous company’s names some of us were
in before are were called “Vibe production”, “Streetlight
production”, “Kings Key productions”, … .
Traditional and advertising: We have made a poster for our digital advertisement and for
traditional advertising instead we are going to put posters and pictures of our horror movie on
bus stops, tubes and other places where you can take public transports (this is also due to the
audience being teenagers who are most likely to take public transports to go to school).