Major Project Unit- Inspiration from "The Shining."

Whilst scripting Ascension, the kind of atmosphere set pieces would create was something I wanted to focus on heavily, particularly with the scenes taking place at the Lodge in the Scottish Highlands. The kind of atmosphere I wanted to create was similar to the atmosphere created in Stanley Kubricks film adaptation of Stephen Kings; "The Shining."

As seen in the above photographs, the location of the haunted hotel in the Shining is actually a very scenic one, and would probably be described as some kind of winter wonderland, if not for the horrific goings-on at the place. The use of snow and fog creates the illusion of a very small, enclosed (almost cozy) area which is the kind of atmosphere I wanted to capture and use in my own location for Ascension.

I wanted to play with the idea of a very beautiful, scenic, grotto-esque type area being made dangerous, and inescapable, and so during the creation of my script and describing the scene, I made sure to pay special attention to the description of the snow, and the enclosed nature of the area, such as mentioning "glistening frost" "hanging lights" and "snow that covers the place like cake icing."

I feel that the idea of having such creepy, dangerous occurrences in such a scenic and beautiful area adds its own effect and definitely adds a sense of fear and unknown to the story I am trying to tell.

Major Project Unit- How to Write a Treatment Document

I have begun to thoroughly research the ways in which a treatment document is written, which I hope will allow me to create a much more entertaining and informative treatment document for episodes 3,4, and 5 of Ascension.
I began my research by first finding out exactly what a treatment document is, what it's intended use is, and what aspects make up the document. I came across this website; http://www.movieoutline.com/articles/how-to-write-a-treatment.html which I feel was a suitable starting point for my research into this subject.

Something that the website points out is that a good way in order to test out whether a particular concept or idea for a visual piece works, is to create a treatment document before even beginning to create a  script itself, something I did not do for episode 1,2 and 6 of Ascension.  Although I do not feel that my work has suffered as a result of not doing this, I feel that if I had created a treatment document to form the basis of my project's beginning, there is a great possibility I would have been able to carry out the script-writing segment of my project much faster, as I would have already had a carefully structured story template which I would be able to base my work off of.

In terms of what exactly a treatment is used for, I have spoken with several screenplay writers and media practitioners in the past, and so I have learnt first hand exactly what the purpose of these documents are. Treatment documents are usually created BEFORE a script begins to be written, and is used to pitch an idea for a film/series episode or concept or idea before a script has been written. Since there is never a guarantee a series like the one I am creating will get commissioned, there are benefits to creating a pilot episode, and then treatment documents for the remaining episodes, as treatments are significantly quicker to write, and as such, if a pilot episode doesn't get the green light to be commissioned, the screenplay writer will have more time to create a fresh pilot episode or a new series that WILL be commissioned.

Once I had a clear idea about what a treatment document would be used for, I decided to check out exactly what aspects should be included in a treatment in order for it to fulfil its intention. The website suggests that the following should be included in a treatment;

Of course, the aspects listed here for "what should be in the treatment" are what should be used in a short or feature length film, but some of these aspects could be included in a treatment written for an episode of a series too.

The next stage of my research will be to begin looking online for treatment documents that have gone on to be commissioned, and check them out for any recurring themes or writing styles that I could incorporate into my own work.