2 minute film: treatment

Working title: A Busks Life

Length: 5-10 Mins

Format: Documentary

Hook or tag line:

Short synopsis (25-50 words):

What is the film about?

This film is about the daily lives of Buskers in the city centre of Sheffield. We hope to find out what motivates these people to busk in Sheffield and also hopefully challenge peoples perception of what a busker does and why they do it.

Mid-Length synopsis/outline (250 words):

What is the core subject matter of your film? How will the story unfold? What are the themes/issues/arguments you are trying to uncover? Who are the key contributors? What makes them interesting? What will we learn about them? Use visual language the aim is to bring the story alive and the characters off the page.

The core subject matter of this film is finding out what it is like to be a Busker and we are also hoping to uncover ties between busking and being homeless as it seems to be a necessity to make money for some people. The main theme of the documentary will be showing the motivation for individual buskers and also challenge people’s perception of buskers as we feel they get a slightly bad press. Our Key contributor so far is one busker who we have spoken to a couple of times and are making the focus of our poetic documentary; he is very entertaining to speak to and clearly an interesting character so there is potential for him to be the focus of our ten minute documentary as well. I spoke to him on my own and asked him a few questions just to get an idea of what it would be like to interview him and his answer to “What makes you come out here and do this?” Was that he just wanted to make people happy and he that he was most confident in his ability with the tambourine. I thought this was a very heart-warming and funny response and hopefully his answers to all of my questions will be similar. Hopefully we will learn a lot about this person and how the general public perceives him as he is quite a quirky character.

Analysis of approach (500 words):

How will you make this film? What will it look and sound like? What is its style? What are the techniques used? What works were inspirational to the film? What works does it resemble? What is its mood? Its ambience?  Demonstrate enthusiasm and a distinctive visual/aural voice here. Include references to TWO films that you have watched as research.

We will be making this film in a quite close and intimate style where the buskers can be closely viewed by the audience and it will give the audience a better chance of connecting with them on an emotional level. The film will look quite bright and natural so that the audience will feel as if they are seeing it from their own point of view, in a similar style to Sign Language – Anthony Gurner (http://vimeo.com/9573920). I like the close style of this film and how fun and relatable the main focus of the film is, the style works really well to make the audience connect with the protagonist. The sound in the film will mostly be backed by the music of the Busker(s) that we are talking to and then their responses to our questions on top of that. I want to cut out the sound of us asking questions to it appears that the focus of the interviews are just talking about their lives and speaking directly to the audience, sort of breaking the fourth wall like Ferris Buellers Day Off but without it being scripted. Sort of in the style of “Fifty People One Question” – Galvea Kelly(http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GnLiLZnnx3I#!) where the people being interviewed will repeat the question back to the camera so that the audience knows what the person is talking about and it also feels natural, flowing like a conversation. Technically this film will be quite simple, mostly handheld with lots of establishing shots and footage of the general public responding to the buskers. In the two minute film we will only be filming the pedestrians whenever the focus of the documentary is singing/playing his instruments and only cut to him when he is not speaking, perhaps just smiling in order to fit the brief and make it a bit more poetic. The inspiration for this film is just seeing one busker in the city centre and thinking that he was so entertaining that he deserved to have a film made about him. He sings happy (not very good but very joyful) songs and plays random instruments but clearly does not know how to play them but he laughs and smiles the whole time and it makes him really entertaining and fun. We have also thought that a lot of people busk for money so the documentary might uncover a more serious reason for these people to have to busk. The film should resemble the two short films that I have referenced earlier with a light hearted and cheerful mood but with the possibility of serious undertones depending on the motivation of the buskers.

Filmmaker biography (50-100 words) :

What kind of documentary maker or filmmaker are you? What are the themes in your work? How do you approach work? Do you have any awards?

As a film maker I want these documentaries to be quite light hearted and approachable for the audience but not pointless… they should have a serious undertone but approached in an easily digestible and un offensive manner. Themes in my work include a lot of handheld as I like the close personal feel of it as the audience can feel as if they are actually there and not just watching from a camera fixed to a tripod. Audience engagement is very important to me in every film I make, even documentaries. I approach work in quite a relaxed manner and try to make the entire cast/crew feel comfortable as being too serious can intimidate people and stifle them when we go to film.