mini TREATMENT BY
DYLAN MARANDA
and
SEQUOIA
Thanks for hearing me out in our meeting last week.
Just wanted to reiterate my approach on paper so you can have a touchpoint for where my head is at.
I think you have a really unique idea on your hands, even more so with the potential of the 60 second cinema buy. I believe we have an opportunity to create something that really sticks with people here— something that has an impact beyond a single spot, something that changes perspective on accessibility.
With all pitches of mine, I consider the treatment a starting point for discussion. I do, however, feel strongly about getting you on board with this approach; so with that said, I appreciate you hearing out my ideas.
let’s dive in…
We see a close-up of eyes… Sweat… The rise and fall of heavy breathing. The camera beins slowly zooming out— we get our super:
“THIS IS ABBY”
Our hero grits their teeth and makes a grunt of effort.
“ABBY SET HERSELF A GOAL”
The camera continues to zoom out. Our hero is catching their breath… There’s no music, only the sound of the outdoors, the clanging of metal, and— A GRUNT of effort: we see they are in a wheelchair, on a flight of stairs.
“TO SEE HER GRANDMOTHERS APARTMENT”
It’s arduous, it’s painful— but we don’t cut away. The experience of the viewer is paralleling that of our hero. We are forcing them into completing something that is necessary but difficult.
“IN A BUILDING WITHOUT A RAMP”
Another huge effort— They’re up another step. Still zooming out, we can see they are near the top… But now we begin to see how many they’ve already climbed.
“THAT’S WHY ABBY LEARNED HOW TO DO THIS”
Our camera still zooming out... We are wide now, shooting from the bottom of the stairs looking up.
“BUT JUST BECAUSE SHE CAN”
We see all the stairs— theres alot. Our hero is nearing the top.
“DOESNT MEAN SHE SHOULD HAVE TO”
The camera stops zooming. Our hero takes a pause to catch another breath. It’s over this frame that we get our end cards:
RHF LOGO + CTA
HELP CREATE AN ACCESSIBLE WORLD FOR #EVERYONEEVERYWHERE.
DONATE TO THE RICK HANSEN FOUNDATION TODAY.
RICKHANSEN.COM
Top level, here are my notes regarding this approach:
- Reserving the entire runtime of 60 seconds to be a oner— This gives us something completely unique to the experience we are showing on screen, shot from the unique perspective: the bottom of the stairs facing up. An angle you only get with climbing stairs in a wheelchair backwards. This approach allows us to experiment in form by integrating our length and buy directly into the concept for the spot itself.
- Starting the spot extremely tight and slooooowly zooming out the entire length of the spot until you end on a wide showing the full set of stairs and our subject 3/4 the way up. This immediatly ties us emotionally to the plight of our hero, while not giving away everything completely off the top. We create interest in the viewer, enough that it allows us to slowly reveal the scenario through the length of the full runtime.
- Contextualizing our story and spot with tasteful and minimal supers— Bread-crumbing the concept, story, and cause through the full 60 seconds. This gives us the most flexibility in testing and experimenting with supers without having to commit significant changes to the shooting approach in pre-production.
- We keep our production simple, no frills, and grab this all in one take— This lets us leave room for cut downs by holding on our first frame and last frame so you can simply cut from the closeup to the wide for the 15s, but keeps our shooting approach singular on the day.
How does that all sound?
✨
I appreciate you guys hearing me out on this.
This project is really exciting— A key reason being that if we take this approach… I’ve never seen anything like it!
I truly believe that we will be making something that creates a new perspective on accessibility— a spot that puts people into the experience of those who have to deal with a lack of it.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts