Pre-production

DOCUMENTARY FILM TREATMENT

The working title of your documentary. This one’s essential.

How to become a film nerd

Logline. Explain what your story’s about in a couple of lines.

Include modes

Its about my journey to become a film nerd, developing a deep understanding and engaging myself in the wider film community online. I am somewhat of a film noob, who hasn't watched a lot of the classic, cult movies, so that is my aim in this project.

Performative mode

Explanation of act one. Where are we? What’s this documentary about? Who are the main characters? What do they want?  What’s the setup?

Start off by explaining my situation and my goal. Starts off with a piece to camera that explains I have never watched a lot of classic films, and list them off. Mention that I am going on to study filmmaking with the goal of creating my own films in the future, I also need to introduce myself as a character. Then I need to set out my plan and what I am trying to investigate. I will also give a brief explanation of film, history and the industry, anything that is relevant. Do an interview with an expert about what makes a film nerd and who will give me advice on how to become one. Give an overview of where I am, maybe through a powerpoint presentation and show the state of my letterboxed. Set out the steps of my process, the guide I have created.

Explanation of act two. What’s the conflict? Where’s the story going?

Conduct the steps of the guide I have created. Do regular vlogs about what I am getting up to, how it is going. Do interviews at different stages depending on what I need to find out to help me on my journey. Watch the top 10 films of all time, doing a short bit on each one at different stages, including logging reviews on letterboxed. Its a chronological process, which is shown through the order of the footage. Alongside I need to explain a concept, investigate a part of it maybe like 'what is the greatest film of all time?, getting behind the camera for this part and interviewing people, maybe do an on-location shoot with an interview.

Explanation of act three. How does the documentary reach a resolution? What’s the climax?

Give my findings and thoughts from the experience. Interview with expert of a fan about the experience/subject matter or maybe do a check up interview with the expert that I consulted at the start for them to evaluate my process and ask them whether they think I have became a film nerd.

Final wrap-up. Where do we leave the ‘characters’? What happens at the very end? Is there an epilogue? (a final or concluding event)

Pick my four favourite films on Letterboxed, give final thoughts and advice.

Scheduling:

I could start the process of becoming a film nerd in 30 days after Easter, which would give me from the middle of may to the deadline for editing.

I may book out a camera to film certain pieces to camera which explain the main topics of the film and maybe during interviews, but the rest I will just film on my phone.

Planning:

I need to start off with filming footage for the documentary introducing the premise, my starting position, the challenge and my goals

Then I will start the challenge, filming regular updates on my progress throughout.

Alongside I will have a topic to investigate, which will lead me to interview people, maybe about how to get into the film industry, how to become more knowledgeable

My challenge is to become more knowledgeable in film, and create a portfolio on social media, creating content about film and taking my first steps into the industry to help me in university

To become and film fan and then get into film, that is the goal, so maybe I lead an investigation into how to get into the film industry, how do people first develop an interest and then grow that into becoming part of the industry.

I can contact John Currie from the Beeston Film Festival for an interview. I need to see if it will fit into my project, as part of my side investigation.

I will try to answer 'what is the greatest film of all time?' through watching many films during the process, but I will try to answer 'how to get into the film industry?' through interviews. I will link the two topics by saying that I want to get into the industry and a lot of film nerds may feel the same way.

I will also try to discover my own personal taste, tailoring the experience to movies I want to watch and being honest if I find a movie boring and lacklustre. I will try to determine my favourite films, genres, director, and actors.

I'm going to follow the Letterboxed Official top 250 films with the most fans list. I am going to try to watch as many of these films as possible, I will watch the top 25 or so fresh, but I will at first see how many of the films from this list that I have already watched.

List of films to watch in order (access):

Interstellar (Now)

La la land (DVD)

Dead Poets Society (Disney and DVD)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Netflix and Now)

Everything, Everywhere All At Once (Channel 4)

Little Women (DVD and Prime)

Fight Club (Disney)

Whiplash (Now)

10 Things I Hate About You (Disney)

Parasite (DVD and Netflix)

The Perks of Being a Wallflower (DVD)

Pride and Prejudice (DVD and Netflix)

Call Me By Your Name (DVD and Prime)

Good Will Hunting (Prime)

The Dark Knight (Prime)

Coraline (DVD)

Fantastic Mr Fox (Disney and ITVX)

Howl's Moving Castle (Netflix)

Spirited Away (Netflix)

Pulp Fiction (Netflix, Prime and Now)

The Shawshank Redemption (DVD and Now)

Black Swan (DVD and Disney)

SpiderMan Into the Spiderverse (Netflix)

The Godfather (DVD and Now)

Scream (Netflix)

I will first see how many of these films I have watched already and if its quite a lot, I will just choose films at random from the list that haven't watched but want to.

I will first conduct primary research to see if this list is accurate and get some more recommendations. I can go with the flow when it comes to picking movies to watch but there are some that I need to like Citizen Kane, The Godfather, Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction.

Set my Letterboxed top 4 movies at the start of the process and then review it again after the process.