Assignment 3 - Treatment

Treatment of The Halloweiners II: Son of Frankenstein

By Aaron Biberdorf

                The goal of this project is to continue the plot of my first video project, The Halloweiners.  The sequel to this project is called The Halloweiners II: Son of Frankenstein.  Where part one of the series dealt with themes of identity, this project will address the theme of overcoming stereotypes and expected roles in society.  After watching this video, the viewer should be able to make a connection as to how genders, races, and possibly even religions have certain skill sets and are then expected to use those skill sets without deviation, in the eyes of our society.  The targeted audience will be students or teachers covering this theme in their social studies or English courses.

                The Halloweiners saw ‘Frankenstein’ reveal that he was actually a real boy that dressed up like his monstrous friends to fit in (identity crisis).  In The Halloweiners II, this man, who will now go by Frank, will have a child that turns out to be a true monster (the actual Frankenstein monster, known as 'Frankenstein'... even though the classic monster is nameless...).  Frankenstein attends school and plays on a co-species volleyball team.  The rule for co-species teams is that there must be at least two monsters on the court at one time (much like co-ed volleyball teams).  Furthermore, when monsters are on the court, they typically play in the power position as they are much stronger and can hit harder than humans, in general.  This parallels how girls on a co-ed team generally play setter as they are shorter and usually can’t jump higher than the net to block or hit (in general of course).  As Frankenstein is a slower moving monster, he is usually on the sidelines and rarely gets to play (there are only 7 team members).  During the game, a human playing middle will get injured, forcing Frankenstein to come in to play.  At this time, Frankenstein will dominate the court as he is very tall and surprises everyone.

                This video will be shot at my house in Kenaston as well as the Kenaston School Gym.  Since my cast will consist of both monstrous and human characters, I will need a variety of costumes.  The Kenaston Dinner Theatre group has a wide array of wardrobes at my disposal.  The school also has access to production lights which I will borrow.

                There will be some serious challenges with this project.  First, I only have one weekend I can shoot as that is when my talent is all available.  Therefore, the bulk of the video will be produced on May 31 and June 1 of 2013.  I will also have some lighting out of my control.  For example, I will be forced to use the lights in the gym, and since I will be doing a lot of wide angle shots of the volleyball game I will not have an opportunity to use extra lighting to get rid of shadows.  However, it will look natural as the setting is a gym.  Since I will be taking shots from a distance away from the game I am expecting audio to be an issue.  I am hoping to get my hands on a Zoom mic so I can set it near the court and relay that audio back to the camera (using a wireless mic), or lay that sound picked up by the Zoom over the sound from the camera during editing.  One other subtle problem will be having my friends as the talent.  They have all seen The Halloweiners and are very invested in it.  I will need to have a clear direction and stick with my gut instincts as they will want to have some input in the process.  Finally, I am going to need to decide if I want to go with black and white footage like I did in the original project.  Since I will be using a lot of make-up, the black and white footage will allow me to get away with a few blemishes and imperfections.  At the same time, I want to be able to work on my understanding of lighting, make-up, etc.  By shooting this project in color, it will separate from the original (which is not a bad thing).  If I decide to go with black and white, I will do this during post production so I don’t pigeon hole myself.