Project Proposal

Working Title: 10 Seconds
Project Leader: Ben Roberts
My Role: Producer/Director & Multimedia

Premise
A character who is a “wannabe” camera man starts seeing a strange girl appearing in clips on his cheap digital camera. The events unfold in short bursts of no more than 10 seconds (a limitation of certain video-enabled cameras) which adds to the suspence when events take a turn for the worse – after he causes a girl to get hit by a car and flees the scene. Reality starts to blur and the police get involved. After watching the film, viewers can go online and look at police files etc to figure out the true events, see what happened between the clips, and uncover more of the story.

Background to Idea
I wanted to create a unique style to the film, which I hope to achieve through using short incidental clips, not to progress the narrative, but to give glimpses of a narrative which is happening out of the control of the protagonist. It is partly inspired by Blair Witch, however it will be much more candid, as the character is not hunting for supernatural stuff. The online cross-media aspect is inspired by narrative-progressing websites such as the Donnie Darko one.

Style/Treatment of Idea
The film is made totally of incidental footage:

• 10 second or less shots
• Photos
• Webcam footage / Video blog
• CCTV footage
• Police interview tape recordings

This works towards making the piece seem rooted in real life. The website will be themed like a police database.

Project Outline – The Film
The film is made out of a series of incidental clips. It starts with 2 policemen conducting an interview. Only the cassette recording is heard. When things are said by the interviewee, the film “flashes back” showing the evidence mentioned, the majority of which is short video clips from the character’s digital camera.

It starts with typical tomfoolery amongst friends, but while filming and walking backwards, the character steps out into the road, causing a car to swerve and hit a young girl. Due to the camera’s limited video features, clips are a maximum of 10 seconds each, so well timed breaks increase tension by causing an unknown outcome. The audience is unaware of the time between each clip but when required, clues will be used to suggest a rough estimate. Audiences are also unaware that the girl is killed. The next cut sees the character using his camera at a party, where people start to get tired of being filmed. Photos are taken instead. Photos flash very quickly on-scree, and the last one shows a girl sat between 2 people – a small young girl who looks to have been involved in some kind of car accident…

Back to the film footage; people are laughing at the main character, since there is clearly no girl in the room and they think he’s just high or drunk. Someone then points to the window and the camera pans quickly, cutting out right after a glimpse of a face outsite. The next clip shows a closeup of a small hand print inside the window and lots of confused sounding people.

Following this, the audience sees webcam footage of the protagonist and his girlfriend sleeping. He has set it up in his paranoia as a kind of security blanket. In the dark grainy footage, a small girl appears and then quickly disappears – along with his girlfriend. The next thing the audience sees is a video blog with him looking very scared when he is then distracted and moves off camera. The shot is held for some time.

Back to the police tape; interview over. There is some mumbled discussion as another officer comes in. None of the evidence that has been described could be found on the camera. There is then a final clip of the girl picking up the camera from the camera’s point of view.

Project Outline – The Website
The website will be done in Flash and HTML, and will precede the mediascape experience, making sure that everyone who uses the mediascape has experience of the film first. It will start off as a large picture of a desk, top down. On the desk is a police evidence bag, a keyboard, an iPAQ, and some other random bits and pieces like pencils etc. There is the background sound of a busy office. The camera, which has been taken out of the evidence bag, is face down so displaying the back. Three of the buttons are slowly glowing just to let the user know that they can be pressed. The buttons are < o >, the outer two which change clip and the middle one which plays a clip. The user can then explore the contents of the camera. What they see are the clips and photos from the film. It means they can watch the film non-linearly and explore areas of interest. They can also click on the computer keyboard which changes their view to a computer monitor which is showing YouTube, and the video blog that Shayne records at the end of the film.

After either a set time or on an event such as the last clip being watched, the user will see a message come up on the on-screen iPAQ saying “Incoming Call, Click Here to receive.” When the user click it they hear the voice of the police officer from the film, and perhaps an image of him. He has a conversation with the player, but we never hear the player’s voice to keep the player’s character as their own (A woman player hearing a man’s voice would have their fantasy broken). During the conversation, the user is instructed to visit the location of the film and do some investigating.

The officer then hangs up and the user is free to explore the desk again. On the computer screen and above the YouTube window is now an Instant Messenger window with 2 links on it from the officer. One downloads the mediascape file onto the user’s computer, and the other links to yahoo maps or google maps with St Andrews Park located. This gives the user everything they need to start the mediascape!

Project Outline – The Website
Throughout the mediascape itself, the officer will always be onscreen talking to the user and guiding them around the scene, giving useful information and not so useful information. In certain areas, witness recordings and photos etc will be shown on the iPAQ, to put together the story. The officer will comment on these and suggest where the player should head next. That is until strange things start happening… The picture of the officer starts to flicker, kind of like interference and the breaking up of signal. The little girl flashes very quickly on the screen, and there is a child’s laugh very faintly. Then mediascape speakers will become enabled. One of these is the creaking of a swing in the play area. Since the player should be there at night/evening (recommended to coincide with the time the original film events occurred) they will see that the play park is empty. As they get closer, the creaking lets louder. However, when they get very close it stops, and they hear footsteps run past them and a gate opening then closing. But there is nobody around. This is when the atmospheric music kicks in. It will evolve with the build up of events and will change depending on the user’s location. Daniel Markland is composing it in a way where it can be built up using multiple layers and events. There will be a narrative here where the officer gets back in touch and starts to believe everything, but using sound/image techniques coupled with the natural creepiness of the park at dusk the user will hopefully feel pretty scared and really involved in the story.