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treatment The fame unfinished treatment (warning language)

The Fame

Treatment/ outline by

Raymond Leggs



The film opens with FLICK strumming his guitar in the darkened bedroom of his upscale los Angeles apartment, his girlfriend JEZEBEL WALKER, typical young twenty two year old blonde bombshell. lays on the bed in her bikini, out cold. Patch cables, and musical equipment are scattered haphazardly on the floor.

His Fellow Bandmates, Woodrow and Nate, do cocaine in the bathroom, BRANDON sits outside the bathroom door swilling at a bottle of vodka.

UPSCALE NIGHT CLUB, lots of beautiful bodies grinding, RILEY JOHANSOON a beautiful, brunette, pixie haircut sporting seductress, eyes a man from across the room, 80’s esque pop music throbs in the background. Suddenly the two are dancing, kissing, grinding on the dance floor, the erotic bliss turns into a beautiful night mare as she bites is neck and drains him dry.

UPSCALE RESTAURANT typical stuck up, stuck in the 80’s restraint, ELIJAH BARRINGTON, checks his messages, on his phone as his wife, ELIZABETH tries to talk at him, she knocks it out of his hand, causing him to go apeshit.

MUSIC VIDEO SET, Flick, Nate, Woodrow, and Brandon, synch to a playback of their song against a green screen, their Black T-shirts all have the words THE FAME written on the front of them,
after the DIRECTOR wrap’s the scene, Barrington pulls Flick aside and tries to goad him to make the band put out a more commercial track, Less “Depeche Mode” and more the killers or One republic.

PUBLIC RESTROOM Riley changes her blood soaked clothes and stuffs them in a garbage bag.

LOUISVILLE KENTUCKY, we have a sweeping daytime helicopter shot of the city.

Run-down house, IAN CAREY smakes a cigar as he leers at the drugged out teenage girl laying on his ruined matress, the room is dingy, under lit, and an absolute mess. he has a video camera recording the girl as she starts to writhe and moan.

LA. A sweeping nighttime helicopter shot (stock footage) of the city.

ANOTHER CLUB, Jezebel, Flick, brandon and Woodrow sit at the bar conversing, as Nate tries his luck on some Emo chick. she throws her martini in his face. Brandon sees His father AARON, laeaning agains the wall drinking a mint julep. His father comes to the bar, and sits by him. he begins harassing him, he asks if he is “fucking” any of any of the dudes in his band, and goes on about “fags and whores”, and “niggers” as he so eloquently puts it. Brandon punches the shit out of him and he falls off the stool.

RIVERSIDE. NIGHT Brandon smokes a cigarette, he loosens his suit jacket and button down shirt. Riley seems to drift from the shadows, wearing a beautiful dress, he takes a look at her, she puts her hand on his shoulder, they start a conversation, they seem to vaguely hit it off.

RESTRAUNT. DAY Woodrow, Brandon, flick, and nate riff on Barrington, and the excesses of fame and the fact that nobody wants to meet people face to face anymore and instead hide on the internet, behind fake personalities.

HOUSE PARTY- NIGHT

The band rocks the house with their new single.
 
All of these are scenes that seem to be strung together with no rhyme or reason. Yes, it's not a script but what is this supposed to outline? What makes these "events" important and linked?

"UPSCALE RESTAURANT typical stuck up, stuck in the 80’s restraint, ELIJAH BARRINGTON, checks his messages, on his phone as his wife, ELIZABETH tries to talk at him, she knocks it out of his hand, causing him to go apeshit." -- What does that mean? How are they relevant? Is this about vampires? Drugged out band? Who are all these people? What am I watching?

You're throwing a lot of characters and ideas of events onto paper. You seem to jump haphazardly through time and space. This isn't non-linear, this just feels chaotic. You tend to introduce characters who are angry or just generally uninteresting to a viewer. Riley's a vampire--mildly interesting--but seems to vanish until further along. By that time, we've met more boring angry people. You need at least one character that your audience is interested in following. Give them some positive, redeeming quality.

In your position, I would write each of these events on a separate index card. I would then organize them sequentially for a specific location--all LA locations, all Louisville locations, etc. Number them--LA01, LA02, ...; KY01, KY02, ...; etc. I would lay them out chronologically in separate rows so I had the days aligned and write the day numbers on them--d01, d02, .... Now you can start layout out your story as it evolves. If you are going to shift between Ky and LA you need something to connect them. This is done by your characters or actions.

The order of your events help to tell a story. If Ian is connected to Riley then they should be linked. Make it visually clear he's a vampire if that's the case. Perhaps the green screen shot should come first followed by the hotel room sequence. You can make this conception work but you need to make it flow together.

Here's one way you might reorganize it:
Code:
LA. A sweeping nighttime helicopter shot (stock footage) of the 
city. 

UPSCALE NIGHT CLUB, lots of beautiful bodies grinding, RILEY 
JOHANSOON a beautiful, brunette, pixie haircut sporting 
seductress, eyes a man from across the room, 80’s esque pop 
music throbs in the background. Suddenly the two are dancing, 
kissing, grinding on the dance floor, the erotic bliss turns into a 
beautiful night mare as she bites is neck and drains him dry. 

HOUSE PARTY- NIGHT 
The band[COLOR="Blue"], the Fame,[/COLOR] rocks the house with their new single. 

PUBLIC RESTROOM Riley changes her blood soaked clothes and 
stuffs them in a garbage bag. 

FLICK strumming his guitar in the darkened bedroom of his 
upscale los Angeles apartment, his girlfriend JEZEBEL WALKER, 
typical young twenty two year old blonde bombshell. lays on the 
bed in her bikini, out cold. Patch cables, and musical equipment 
are scattered haphazardly on the floor. 

His Fellow Bandmates, Woodrow and Nate, do cocaine in the 
bathroom, BRANDON sits outside the bathroom door swilling at 
a bottle of vodka.  [COLOR="Blue"]Phone rings. The others ignore it.
Brandon staggers to get it and sees it's from Elijah.  He shakes
his head and heads off to the couch.  Flick asks Brandon if he's
still thinking about his ex.  Flick tells him with fame he has his pick
of hot chicks.[/COLOR]

UPSCALE RESTAURANT typical stuck up, stuck in the 80’s restraint, 
ELIJAH BARRINGTON, checks his messages, on his phone as his 
wife, ELIZABETH tries to talk at him, she knocks it out of his hand, 
causing him to go apeshit. 

MUSIC VIDEO SET, Flick, Nate, Woodrow, and Brandon, synch to a 
playback of their song against a green screen, their Black T-shirts 
all have the words THE FAME written on the front of them, after 
the DIRECTOR wrap’s the scene, Barrington pulls Flick aside and 
tries to goad him to make the band put out a more commercial 
track, Less “Depeche Mode” and more the killers or One republic. 

RESTRAUNT. DAY Woodrow, Brandon, flick, and nate riff on 
Barrington, and the excesses of fame and the fact that nobody 
wants to meet people face to face anymore and instead hide on 
the internet, behind fake personalities. 

ANOTHER CLUB, Jezebel, Flick, brandon and Woodrow sit at the 
bar conversing, as Nate tries his luck on some Emo chick. she 
throws her martini in his face. Brandon sees His father AARON, 
laeaning agains the wall drinking a mint julep. His father comes 
to the bar, and sits by him. he begins harassing him, he asks if 
he is “fucking” any of any of the dudes in his band, and goes on 
about “fags and whores”, and “niggers” as he so eloquently puts 
it. Brandon punches the shit out of him and he falls off the stool. 
[COLOR="blue"]Flick pulls him off and guides him away.  Riley watches.[/COLOR]

RIVERSIDE. NIGHT Brandon smokes a cigarette, he loosens his 
suit jacket and button down shirt. Riley seems to drift from the 
shadows, wearing a beautiful dress, he takes a look at her, she 
puts her hand on his shoulder, they start a conversation, they 
seem to vaguely hit it off. 

LOUISVILLE KENTUCKY, we have a sweeping daytime helicopter 
shot of the city. 

Run-down house, IAN CAREY smakes a cigar as he leers at the 
drugged out teenage girl laying on his ruined matress, the room 
is dingy, under lit, and an absolute mess. he has a video camera 
recording the girl as she starts to writhe and moan. [COLOR="blue"]He pulls in 
close and his lips curl back to reveal fangs.[/COLOR]
This focuses the attention on Riley. Then we see the rockers. We make Brandon stand out and have a vulnerable side. After seeing Riley dispose of the evidence, we focus on the band more. It introduces Elijah. Now when we meet him and the band on set, we start to see the dynamics. The dynamics of the scene between Brandon and his father is a good lead in for him to meet Riley. The scene with Ian is out of left field so it needs some connection to the developing story. By organizing the sequences so the actions and events flow from one to the other, a more cohesive story emerges. We start to get a sense that this is a story about Riley and Brandon. You need to create your story not just action-oriented events. It helps to use the basic 3 Act structure.

Act 1A - Set Up (introduce the characters and situation)
-- We meet Riley, Brandon, the Band, Elijah
-- Riley's a vampire
Act 1B - Introduce a New Situation and a Complication
-- Riley meets Brandon
-- We meet Ian
Act 2A - Formulate a Plan of Action to Succeed (character throws self in headlong)
Act 2B - More Complications and Higher Stakes (usually a major setback)
Act 3A - Final Push to Succeed with it looking unlikely (suspenseful moment, climax)
Act 3B - Resolution and the Ever After

It could be an interesting horror flick. Focus on telling a story. You had the same problem with the previous post. You visualize events but don't connect them together to form a story. If you layout your time line and follow a story structure, I think you will have much better success. Good luck.
 
Good advice from FantasySciFi.

I would forget treatments, and that was not really a true treatment - more rough-ideas for a bunch of scenes. A true treatment tells you the story - it's not simply a bunch of scenes.

And it's essential to describe your characters which you hardly do. Many pro screenwriters do a lot of background work for their characters - so they understand them, and how they would talk. Ie what is their education, family background, where did they grow up, what are their strengths/weaknesses, vices, love interests etc.

Eg Michael Mann in Heat describes Robert De Niro's character as:

NEIL McCAULEY and a nurse get off. Neil carries a paper bag and wears white pants like a hospital attendant. Neil is an ice-cold professional: very big, very tough. At 42 his short black hair is graying. He spent eight years in McNeil and three in San Quentin. He got out and hit the street in 1987. Four of the McNeil years were spent in the hole. Neil's voice is street, but his language is precise like an engineer's. He's very careful and very good. Neil runs a professional crew that pulls down high line, high number scores and does it anyway the score has to be taken down: if on the prowl (a burglary), that's fine; if they have to go in strong (armed), that's fine too. And if you get in their way, that's got to be your problem. His lifestyle is obsessively functional. There's no steady woman or any encumbrance. Neil McCauley keeps it so there's nothing he couldn't walk from in 30 seconds flat.

You get the idea? It's crucial to understand your characters.

Most pro writers understand their characters in detail but don't describe them in such verbose detail as Mann - eg Frank Darabont in Shawshank Redemption used:

ANDY DUFRESNE, mid-20's, wire rim glasses, three-piece suit. Under normal circumstances a respectable, solid citizen; hardly dangerous, perhaps even meek.

For more character help read:

Characters Intros
http://reelauthors.com/script-analysis-coverage/character-intros.php

How to Create Great Characters
http://reelauthors.com/script-analysis-coverage/how-to-create-great-characters.php

Understand Character Arc
http://reelauthors.com/script-analysis-coverage/character-arc.php
 
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