Utopia - Pitch

Film: Utopia

Genre: Drama

Form: The opening to a feature film

Location: Connors house

Time: Morning – In the not so distant future!

Characters: Connor, A young man living in ‘Utopia’ – He questions if being watched and unable to do as he wants to is worth the ‘perfect’ crime free world that the control and surveillance has created, all of his doubts and questions will hopefully be portrayed through his dream, where he intentionally goes against the rules he hates and does what he wants for a single day.

Plot Outline: The plot takes place in a world that is meant to be a sort of utopia, everybody is being watched by those that govern them, The Government using cameras to constantly watch and ruin their opposition and through indoctrination they allow themselves essentially creative control of the entire of the earths past, similar to that of Nazi Germany. This allows them complete control of the world, and therefore they bring utopia through order, and are willing to commit any act to keep it that way, even if it means taking away peoples freedom.

Our plot follows the character Connor, whom is played by Connor. A young man born and raised in this ‘utopia’ who desires one thing, freedom, as he goes about his usual schedule, the same he has done every morning of his life for so long he cannot remember a time before he had done so. When told to simply ‘listen to music’ by the unseen voice telling him his usual routine, he finds himself drifting off to sleep whilst listening to the calming music, he dreams of one thing, Freedom.

Key Micro Features: Costume design; using as little colour as we can in the sets and the costumes we can give a feeling of how dull Connors life has become, switching to colourful scenery for the dream scene to show how it seems fun and exciting to him. During the time Connor is awake, Quick cuts to various angles will be used to give the audience the idea that they themselves are watching the character during his time awake, like they are the ones hidden behind the camera’s that keep him under surveillance, giving the audience an idea of how somebody his watching his every waking moment, making sure he sticks to his routine.

Influence / Inspiration: 1984 (1984), Brazil (1985),  Black Mirror (2011).

Unique Selling point: Satire on the increasing censorship and surveillance that we see today.

Our roles:

Connor; Having directed in the preliminary, I will have experience in both directing and acting and can use this to my advantage to improve on my skills for my main task rather than switching the roles. I will also be handling location finding, since the film will consist of almost entirely in my house. I will also be providing the costume and props for the movie, as it’ll be my own clothes and possessions used in the movie.

Kieran; I will be the camera man for this task since only one actor is needed (Connor). I will also be editing the main task like I had the preliminary, so I already have experience using the editing software and so should be at least somewhat better than before. I will also be in charge of collecting the copyright free music and sound effects that will be used in the film, for example the classical music that will play in the background of Connors dream sequence.

We will both be working on the script and the storyboard together. As we will both need a full understanding of what we had in mind for our main task.

Target Audience: 15+

Target Audience Appeal: Considering the premise of our main task, it would be incredibly difficult for a young child to understand what is going on, therefore making it unsuitable to them. It will appeal to a more mature audience because of its relatively mature theme, and a premise that challenges them. For example; Is being watched constantly and being indoctrinated worth it if the result is a crime free world?