Synopsis & Treatment
Treatment
Before anything is shown, the music starts quietly and gradually gets louder. The music is quite dramatic due to the dramatic opening. The opening shot is of the door opening from inside the cellar. Immediately we are introduced to the little girl and her emotion, we see the girl being taken down the stairs by the mother; the camera stays eye level with the little girl. The cellar will enable us to introduce the mazes and labyrinths theory into the opening. The camera will not show the mothers face so we only see from the girls’ height so the mothers’ identity isn’t revealed straight away, this ensures the partial vision theory. The mother drags her to the bottom of the stairs, the woman then leaves the girl there and returns back upstairs, she does this in a very cold manner, trying to disconnect from the girl completely. A bible is thrown down the cellar stairs at her and the door is quickly shut and locked loudly to give dramatic effect, the loud bang of the door would echo to symbolise the girl will be trapped there for a long amount of time, the cellar is inescapable. She sits at the bottom of the stairs and begins to cry, the audience will realize that this has may have happened at an earlier point I her life as she does not try to escape. This sequence leaves the audience to ponder ‘What has this girl done to get such a punishment?’ The girl is left in there while the shot fades into black.
After the fade out the screen will stay black for 5 seconds, graphics will fade onto the screen in white text saying ‘5 YEARS LATER’ there is a 5 year flash forward to the present day where the girl is now 17. The shot fades in from black to the girl who has been locked in the cellar for the past 5 years; she has not seen the light of day since she was last put in there. She has numerous scars on her fingers from trying to scratch at the door, maybe a few nails missing and bloody hands. The shot starts as a close up on the girl’s bloody hand; proving the question and answer model within this opening. This shot also shows the audience that the girl has endured pain while being down there. The next shot is a close up of the girls closed eye lid which also has some blood on.
The music starts again and the shot zooms in very quickly into the girls’ eyelid. A flash back in black and white ‘old film’ effect begins of the 12 year old girl turning on the television and straight away a very violent and graphic film comes on, the little girl seems to be intrigued by this and wants to keep watching. During this sequence there will be over the shoulder shots of the girl watching the graphic film. There will also be close ups of the girls face to show her reaction to the violence as she has never seen this before. The last shot before the mother enters will be on the shoulder of the girl as she hears her mother enter, the girls head slowly turns towards her mother and slowly her mouth opens in a shocked way. However the audience still don’t see the mothers face. In this sequence the mother takes the little girl by the hand to the bottom of the cellar, just like in the first shot, except it is shot in a different angle than before. Except this time the camera follows the little girl and the mother to the cellar door, with the mothers’ face still unseen as she has turned around. This lets the audience understand that this was what the girl was punished for. After the girl has been taken to the cellar for the second time and the door has been slammed, the camera goes close to the door for a close up, then when the width of the door is in shot, the title of the film will appear in big bold white letters, the shot will then dramatically turn to a black screen as the music climaxes to a loud bang with the title still on the screen, then the title will fade.
The next sequence will demonstrate further the girls’ (Olivia) pain and suffering by showing her parents feeding her. By this time Olivia has barely any strength so it is almost impossible for her to escape, leaving her open to be abused. The sequence will show the mother (Mary) entering the cellar to feed Olivia. She shows Olivias weakness through the shot by having to force feed her. Not only does it show weakness but also the will for Olivia to live, she doesn’t want to live anymore, starvation is her only way out. After much struggling the mother finally manages to get some food down her throat. Mary then leaves swiftly up the stairs and through the door, leaving Olivia on the cold hard cellar floor.
The story continues, Olivia has decided to give it another shot at calling for help, although the numerous attempts through the past 5 years haven’t done much for her. So after her decision she decides to give up on being force fed a little, but not too much to make Mary suspicious. With a little bit of strength she prepares herself. On a day when her parents are out after hearing the door shut (see a shot of the parents leaving from outside), she attempts a violent screech at the top of her voice; she clenches her throat with a disgruntled look on her face as the sonority splinterizes her throat. She gasps and gives it a second attempt, filling her lungs with noxious gas from the cellar, she bursts with sanity. To Olivias exhilaration, no-one has heard her calls, in the cellar, she remains.
After this we see the outside of the house for the first time, in all its glory. This shot is done in order for the audience to see what kind of environment this family live in, but also to make something else stand out to the audience. A family are moving into the vacant house next door (delivery van). This is essential for the audience to know or the plot will not be understood. Therefore this must be made obvious by showing shots of the two houses but distinguished so the audience knows the girl is only just next door. There will be a few shots from inside the new house, seeing the new couple place boxes around the house to show they are new. This family is different from the other, this one is happy and content which provides a contrast.
Next, we see more flashbacks of when Olivia was a child (around 6/7), the way the parents see their daughter, isn’t as it should be. They see her more as an embarrassment to the family, the reason why is still unclear. In the flashbacks Olivia is outside playing in the snow as a happy child. She didn’t have many friends within the neighbourhood, her parents wouldn’t allow it. During the flashback, a woman approaches Olivia and begins playing in the snow with her. The audience is unclear as to who this woman is.
After this we see 17 year old Olivia living in the cellar as usual, all she can wonder is why she is there and how she can get out. Neither of those questions have answers. We see her wonder around the cellar, looking through certain objects which at the moment have no meaning to her. She studies a necklace, just a plain necklace made of cotton, with coloured beads. The significance of this necklace will be made clear at the end of the film.
Olivia gets the instant urge to scream, a force inside of her is going against her will. She releases a constant blast of high pitch speech. Upstairs her parents are eagerly awoken; Mary has an extremely angry expression. She scatters downstairs and opens the door to the cellar and quietly shouts down the stairs at Olivia, who is still screaming with terror. Olivia ceases to stop, Mary runs down the stairs and on her way she trips up on something on the stairs, she tumbles to the dead cellar floor, knocking herself out cold. Mary had left the door open.
Without hesitation Olivia has worked out that the door is open, and she flees for her life. She runs up the stairs as quick as she can in the total darkness. She feels like she has been running for ages, as if the door was getting further and further away. Eventually she reaches the door, with a slight grin, she dashes for the front door, which she remembers is to the left. The father has heard everything that has just happened, and so, runs to the bottom of the house stairs with a stun gun. He sees Olivia and stuns. Her straightened body topples over onto the floor. The shot fades.
The shot re-opens with
