Treatment Sheet

Working title - Mother's Love

Genre - Crime dramas

Duration - 2 minutes 30 seconds - 3 minute

Target audience 

18-24, mainstreamers/aspirers/explorers; younger people who seek security, status and discovery. 

They are sheltered, confident, team-oriented, conventional, pressured and achieving.

They’re problem solvers (therefore enjoying a crime drama as it allows them to solve the crime themselves) and they’re socially conscious (therefore wanting to help the detectives find out what happened).

Gender; typically female

B, C1C2, E (students)

Style

Running away; sepia tones, dark colour palette, eerie feeling

Flashback; highkey lighting, natural colour palette 

Being watched; lowkey lighting, feels creepy to the audience 

Themes

Family relationships (mother and daughter/dad), school and education, secrets, loss, trust 

Typical Features

Storyline shows present day and then a flashback

Characters are teens/young adults

Crime is committed, someone is kidnapped, leaves everyone questioning why

Settings

Home/front garden/drive, walking the dog/walking to school in the street, room where she’s taken?

Characters

Sophie - protagonist, teenage girl, victim 

Mother - another character, in one scene with Sophie to show their close relationship

Dad - kidnapper

Visual Elements

Lowkey lighting for escape, highkey lighting for flashback

Audio Elements

Non-diegetic music - dramatic, tense music when she is being watched / captured 

Diegetic music - breathing, footsteps, leaves rustling etc 

Requirements and resources

3 actors (2 female and 1 male)

2 or 3 locations (home, street, room where she’s taken)

Plot Outline

First scene shows girl running away (audience doesn’t know where from), looking ragged/dirty and scared,  

Second scene shows a flashback of the girl at home with her adoptive mother one morning. Girl is having breakfast when her mother announces she has another letter from her real mum. Girl opens it, receives a necklace and a note saying "See you soon". She dismisses it. Mother gets into her car and goes to work, but the audience can tell she is being watched. Then the girl reads the letter again, seems angry/upset and goes to school/walks her dog, but the audience can tell again that she is being watched. She looks anxious and keeps looking around/over her shoulder. We hear a voice say “Let’s go” or “Now” (or something similar) and Sophie is captured. She is struggling but the woman is too strong, and she turns around to see her face, exclaiming “Mum??”.