Romantic Comedy/ Magical Realism Film Treatment

So for my treatment, I wanted to use the editing/filming technique that Gino made popular with his jump cuts video and combine it with a story that is somewhat supernatural, complementing each other. Here it is:

Logline: A girl meets a weird male "ghost" who appeared and won't disappear until she finds a trigger.

A girl walks down an unassuming hallway reading a paper in her hand only to accidentally kick something. She looks down and finds out that it is a watch. She picks it up and stares closely at it, saying how the spoiled the kinds at the school are. A masculine voice says "That looks kind of familiar". She looks up unassumingly and says, "That's weird" He pops way back through a jump cut." "Now that's really weird."

Cut to walking down the street, the guy behind her in an awkward way. "Well, you are pretty much the only person who can see me, aaaaannnnddd you did pick up my watch, so imma follow you until you can find a way to help me out" "...[sigh] Well I guess it has to do with this watch. I don't really have the heart to throw it away...maybe its some kind of trigger a ghost needs" He shrugs his shoulders in semi-agreement. She walks up to her house, sighs again, and begrudgingly lets him in.

Cut to her walking through the door into her bedroom. She sits down and starts to fiddle with the watch. Clearly this watch isn't working, and we can see this on her face and with the watch. "Weird, I can't remember ever getting this watch to work." "Why is that?" she says, only slightly interested. "Probably too lazy to. Or maybe I was just too distracted, or apathetic. Kinda like you." "Apathy?" "Yeah, you barely care for anything." "Well, I cared enough not to throw your watch away." Awkward silence. "Yeah, you did. I do things like that too often." Meanwhile he flashes back to his past, people turning away from him and brushing his off. "Maybe that's why I'm dead and stuck." Flashback to him preparing to jump off a cliff "...well I guess that's why I'm here." She finally gets the clock moving again. He starts to disappear and says "Well, I'll be seeing you...someday" The girl smiles slightly, "Yeah, right. If only."

A few weeks later as the girl is a her desk looking at the watch, the door behind her opens up. She turns around and the boy is there. "Well, I thought I should get my watch back. Your mom let me in pretty easily. Its nice to be seen again."

She smiles and he comes closer to her, flashing out light to black credits.

Amelie Textual Analysis

From the quirky film Amelie we can see numerous stylistic devices that the director uses to draw the viewers into the story of Amelie and those she effects with her "good-doing". Here are four stylistic devices that are used:

1. Detailed Narration

Throughout the movie, but especially at the beginning, the narrator goes into deep details about each the characters, showing their small, seemingly meaningless quirks, like liking to touch grain in a bag and cracking creme brulee. The detail in this narration gives insight to the idiosyncrasies of the characters, giving highlight to the small details that most other movies miss out on or do not highlight in any particular way.

2. Ornate Set Design




Many scenes involve set designs that have numerous nick-nacs and details. Paris by nature is an artsy city that has a lot of detail in the streets, buildings and businesses, and even the hometown of Amelie is portrayed in such a way. I think that this device is used to make everyday life, even the mundane tasks of going to the market and the subway station, more interesting, emphasizing the value of everyday life, of everyday wonder. Even small details in life are worth taking a look at to appreciate, and since this is a movie, the viewer can be directed to these details that they normally wouldn't notice in life. Appreciating the "small things" is an important theme in the movie, and is essentially Amelie's mission throughout the movie to bring to quite a number of random people.

3. Detail in Minor Characters

In the film, I see how the director has a lot of minor characters that only show up for a total of a few minutes in the film, but it is interesting to note how these minor characters serve as catalysts for change in the more major characters and symbols of certain ideas. A lot of possibilities arise in the way that these characters can effect the major characters in a sometimes minute, but noticable way. For example, the character seen above had his pictures collected by Quicompoix when they fell under the photo booth, leaving Amelie to think that he perhaps left his potraits around with the same stoic face each time so that he could be remembered by someone picking up his portraits scattered around Paris even after he died. This idea of wanting permanence is an interesting idea that the characters may desire in the movie, since Amelie and Quicompoix both interpreted it that way, but the only reason his pictures were all around Paris like that was because he was the repairman for the photo booths. A sense of wonder in the small things is created.

4. Warm Tint




A warm tint is used throughout the film to cast the characters in a benign, joyous light in order to make the viewers warm up to the characters. I really like how the director decided to use these warm tints to make darker scenes and lighter scenes all flow together in one movie, making the movie very cohesive between its different themes. A sense of wonder is created in how the movie looks different from real life with richer colors richer colors that attract interest.