This document provides ideas for a short social realism film depicting domestic violence. It will tell the story of a young child through flashbacks of witnessing abuse in their home. The setting will be a modern suburban house. Key characters include the child, an abusive husband and wife, and social workers. Scenes will show the child playing alone and overhearing violence. Locations include the housing estate, the child's neglected bedroom, and the front of the dirty house. Camera techniques like close-ups and wide shots will emphasize realism. Minimal editing and diegetic sound effects aim to immerse the viewer in the child's experience.

1. Amalia Ford
Main Task Ideas &
Treatment

2. Social Realism
Here is a brief mind map of
possible ideas for our piece.
Setting:
Lighting: Domestic violence in a
Daylight outside, to create a modern day home.
natural ambience then low
lighting inside to enforce Characters:
tension. Young
child/teenager
Our Piece Husband and wife
Props: Two protection
Football (preferably an service workers
airless one)
Action figure toys. Costume:
Clip boards. Clothes that suggest
Location:
neglect, nothing too
An average modern house, in
fashionable. Casual
a suburban housing estate.
wear.
A park or field playing green.
Social workers in smart
A darkened empty bedroom.
dark clothing to
represent authority.

3. As clearly stated in the title, this is a rough idea we
as a group will build upon to create our final story. Rough story outline.
It begins with an establishing shot, outside in a park. The camera continues to pan around until we see
Ambient sound is heard (wind, traffic, birds etc). the house she is looking at. she then watches 3 men
There is no artificial lighting, just daylight to add to in smart clothing approach the door of this house.
the realism. The camera the pans round to reveal a They are holding clip boards and pens.
young girl playing football. A use of iris out editing represents the child having a
flashback. To support this “1 week earlier” will appear
in subtitles on the screen.
We are then shown the child sat on the floor in a As the shouts and screams crescendo, the child
room. The decoration, arrangement and props matches the sound by making his toys represent
suggest it is the child's room. The child is gently what is heard – suggesting he knows what is
playing with two power ranger type toys. happening.
A thump is then heard in the background followed by As the sounds crescendo to a stop and all that is
a cry. As we do not see this happening it suggest the heard is faint crying, we then hear footsteps coming
action is taking place in another room. from down the hall. As they get louder it suggests the
As the child stops to listen, more thumps are heard source of noise is getting closer. The child stops
followed by cries. Screams and shouting then follow. what they are doing and listens in silence. There is a
The focus of the camera remains on the child for pause. Then a medium shot of the door slowly
throughout the rest of the piece. opening is shown. Then – on a cliff hanger - it fades
to black to start the film.

4. Our Location
As you can see from these images our location will be set in a modern day housing estate.
Our beginning shots will start on the field in the foreground because the opening scene revolves around a young girl playing football
on her own. A few moments later she then turns and runs which is why we needed a large open space.
In my opinion, the housing estate creates a false sense of security. The numerous recently built houses appear to be the perfect
„happy family home‟, however our story which is about the sad reality that often happens behind closed doors suggests that things
aren't what they appear to be on the outside. Also, due to the large amount of similar houses it suggests this could be happening to
anyone – even your neighbour.
We also felt this location would be suitable because this popular housing estate is one of many across the country therefore many of
the viewers may be able to relate to the setting.

5. Centre of action
The house shown here (which happens to be Toms house) is where the main action
and story takes place.
Similar to the housing estate, we felt that this house was perfect to use as it is a
„modern – everyday – family house‟ which many viewers will be able to relate to.
We plan to litter the
ground at the front of the
house with empty beer
and wine bottles and any
spare cardboard rubbish
we can find. This is to
create a dirty neglected
appearance, and also to
represent the owners of
the house as careless
heavy drinkers.

6. Main scene of action
The stills of the bedroom below is a child’s bedroom – which belongs to Toms younger brother. Due to the
small space and dim light from the small window we decided this would be the room where the action takes
place. From research, I have learnt many films within the social realism genre use more neglected derelict
buildings, this typical childs bedroom with freshly painted walls and cartoon curtains and endless amounts of
toys appears to be the opposite therefore we plan to slightly change the room so that it appears more
uncared for. We will do this by emptying the draws and boxes full of toys, striping the ‘Starwars’ duvet and
pillow cover and sheet so that the bed is just a mattress and duvet and taking the flat screen television out.
Hopefully then this will denote the abandoned look we want.

7. Title & Graphics Ideas
THiS IS LiFE THiS IS LiFE
Punch + Judy Punch + Judy
Time 2 Run
Worse
than Worse than Anger
Anger Worse than Anger

8. Camera shots, editing & sound:
 Like the conventions of the other social realism films I studied, we plan to use a
large amount of close up camera shots to not only show the strong facial
expressions of all the characters but to also show the bruising and cuts on the
young girls face.
 We plan to also use a large amount of wide shots, this is to represent the
young girl as vulnerable and lonely when she is on her own.
 As for the editing, we plan to use as little as possible only if it is necessary, this
is to make sure the film maintains maximum realism. We do however plan to
use a „merging effect‟ as a transition from the end of one scene to starting
another, this is to symbolise the girl running into the past.
 For the sound, to uphold the realism there will be no non-diagetic sound effects
apart from when we apply a music track above the merging effect.