This short film titled "Dead Souls" follows teenager Mark Lance who discovers an ancient cursed artefact. The next morning he finds the artefact's curse "those who read this will be tormented forever" inscribed on his hand. His friend Kyle explains the curse comes from witches and will cause evil souls to torment and kill Mark. To be saved, Mark must set two possessed bodies on fire and stab two others with a holy water-blessed knife. The film will follow Mark over two days as he awaits encounters with the dead souls, who can possess anyone. It will be a horror/thriller aimed at male audiences aged 15-25 and released on Halloween.

1. Dead Souls
Treatment
Title – Dead Souls
Running time – 19mins (short UK film)
Genre – Horror, Thriller, Action, Comedy Fantasy
Narrative
The film is based around a character named Mark Lance. Mark lance is a
normal but troubled British teenager who usually spends time playing sports
with his friends after school. After playing a one on one basketball match with
his friend Kyle. Mark walks home and stumbles upon an artefact that reads
those who read this soul will be tormented forever. After ignoring it as just
seeing it as a prank or a thing that’s meaningless Mark walks home and
sleeps after a tiring one on one match with his friend Kyle. While waking up on
the next day that follows Mark heads to the bathroom and gets prepared. As
he washes his hand he sees the quote ‘those who read this will be tormented
forever…’ inscribed into the palm of his hand. In a state of confusion Mark
tries washing it off and sees the quote still inscribed into his hand. After
washing it again with soap for the second time he sees that the quote is still
inscribed into his hand. After this Mark gets a text from Kyle telling him to
meet him to head to town. We then move to the scene of Mark with Kyle and
they head up to town. Kyle boasts about the girls he’s been conversing to
while a distressed Mark looks at the inscribed quote in his hand. Kyle
addresses mark by saying why he isn’t paying attention to him and Mark
explains how he randomly woke up with this quote inscribed into his hand
after previously, reading this artefact he stumbled on the day before. After
Kyle reads the quote Kyle enters into a state of shock. Kyle explains how this
artefact in ancient times was a ancient death chain cursed by witches. Kyle
explains how in modern days death chains have become more recent and
how they have no effect to the human body but Kyle explains that this death
chain was written and cursed by witches who were often crucified and in their
vengeance they have written death chains to curse mankind. Kyle then
explains how in whoever reads the actual artefact that they’ll be cursed with
the most evil of souls following them and killing them with unfortunately those
who are killed becoming a dead soul themselves. In a state of horror Mark ask
Kyle if there’s any salvation from this. Kyle explains that in order to stop the
death chain that 2 of the dead souls human dead body have to be set on fire
and the other 2 body has to be stabbed with a knife that’s cleansed with holy
water. When these dead souls arrive they can be anyone. Mark will know who
the dead souls are as when he is touched by someone who has been
possessed by these dead souls he will feel a burning sensation from his hand.
Within 2 days we await what happens and what will happen to Mark…
Character List:
 Tom Holland will portray the main character Mark. Reasons I chose Tom
Holland is because he's a recent prominent star that has landed a role as
Peter Parker/Spiderman for the Spiderman reboot in 2017 and the
anticipated Captain America film in 2016. With him starring in such big
roles he will have a lot of controversy circling around him and a loyal fan
base that will watch movies Tom Holland stars in.
 John Boyega will play the supporting character Kyle. John Boyega has
starred in horror films such as attack the block and he has a huge fan base

2. due to him starring in Star Wars the force awakens. He will also have a fan
base that will watch films he stars in.
 Freddie Highmore will portray Will. Will is possessed and becomes a dead
soul and attacks his friends. I chose Freddie Highmore due to the fact he
suits the character visually and with him starring in The Alfred Hitchcock
Psycho based show Bates Motel he will play this demoniac character
perfectly.
 Luke Pasqualino will portray Luke. Luke is the stud of the group. He
rarely spends time hanging out with Will, Mark and Kyle as he's a guy that
rather make his time useful with girls. I chose Luke due to him featuring
in horror films like The Apparition
 Alfred Enoch will portray Mike. Mike has feuds with Mark. They are
enemies and resolve their conflict by battling the dead souls.
Key scenes
This scene is shot in a school where we see Mark and Kyle are in detention.
Mark seems to be eager to just get detention out the way whereas Kyle
complains. Mark goes to sleep then Kyle just goes on his phone. As time
passes we see that a few weird things goes on. Such as the light coming on
and off and random knocks in a window. As Kyle is bamboozled, Mark
explains reasonable things for all this inconvenience (from this point these are
shot with Mid shots, close ups, pan shots etc.) After this we are followed up by
a scene that’s shot Steadicam style of one of the dead soul (who we don’t
see) attacking Mark and Kyle. I shot this scene Steadicam to add a sort of
paranormal activity effect.
Chase scene between the second dead soul (Anthony Bloom) following Mark
to kill him. This scene will be shot Steadicam style to give an intense feel to
the scene and this scene will consist of mark battling the body of the first dead
soul. When mark battles the second dead soul we are in the setting of a
graveyard and mark quickly cleanses his knife to kill the first dead soul.
Target audience
Primary audience
Male - Reason the primary audience is male is because the film focuses
around Marks life (who is a 17-year-old male) and how he has to cope with
this life changing event. There things in the film that exploit activities that most
male youths around our age do and there's aspects of this film that'll attract a
male audience such as the actions scenes that are shot in this movie.
15-25
The socio economic grouping will be your E, D, C1 or C2. These people are
either still in education whether they are studying in school or university or
these people have some type of job that pay enough if they were to watch this
short movie on DVD.
Secondary audience
Horror/thriller film lovers - these will be the secondary audience as these
people are mix of either male or female. They are watching the movie truly
because they like films that consist of this movie genre and the kind of things
that come from it.
15-25
The socio economic grouping will be similar to the primary audience socio
economic grouping.

3. Representation
We are showing the look of urban areas in South London. The type of
characters you see in the film are stereotypical British youths and there is
dialogue that is South London based. With my film as well there’s abit of
comedy and comedy is a popular film genre in British culture.
Legal and ethical
Music rights:
Publishing licence: from the people who own the copyright to the piece of
music i.e. lyrics and composition. You should note that for this kind of
copyright, copyright exists only when the music or words have been recorded
or written down.
Recording licence: from the people who performed the version of music that
you want to use. For example, sound recording copyright exists in a pianist’s
recording of one of Beethoven's sonatas
Classification
The classification of the film will be a 12. These scenes will not explicit the use
of blood and gore and they aren’t any strong language involved into these
scenes. They'll be scenes that may be disturbing but not disturbing enough for
it to be a 15.
Funding
To acquire funding I can pitch my movie to local councils in hope that they’ll
put money towards the film. I can also acquire funding if the movie was to be
pitched in the international film festival-with the help of The British Council.
The British Council run a long-established and unique scheme whereby
selected films are promoted to the list of 50-60 major international film
festivals. There are also extra things that the British Council due to aid Short
film moviemakers such aiding them with reduced entry fees, as well as
possible travel grants.
The budget for my film is roughly around 3 million pounds. The grand total for
what I calculated for the cast, crew and equipment is £2,376,263.16. So I have
over £623,736.84 left…
The budget for my film is £3,000,000.
Jobs total = £416,024
Equipment total = £200,239.16
Actors total = £1,760,000
Production Schedule

4. My film will be released on October the 31st. Reasons I’m releasing it on this day
is because my film is horror so it would make sense if I release my movie in the
time of Halloween. For my contingency plan you can see from my pre production
schedule that the things I hold as a contingency is rehearsals, read-throughs and
my script. I had me doing rehearsals and read throughs for roughly around6
weeks as if my scenes aren’t right due to my actors not acting in a way I want
them to I have more than enough time for my actors to practice and read through
the script. This is also similar for my script as I planned that for only 7 weeks.
This more than enough time for me to make changes to my script.