mini TREATMENT BY
DYLAN MARANDA
and
SEQUOIA
Really appreciate you being open to working with me again for this amazing cause. Our last spot together is a highlight of my career, knowing how much we were able to make a difference for the charity.
As you know, everything with me is a starting point for discussion, but let it be known that we are taking a swing at this… But that should be exciting. The Rick Hansen Foundation is making brave strides into uncharted territory as they look towards the next 40 years — it requires vision, originality, and big-picture thinking.
This idea reflects that ethos — let's be brave together…
This is a key moment in time for the foundation, preparing for the next 40 years of work while looking back at all the accomplishments that have built towards something bigger. In my mind, this spot should feel significant, epic, and awe-inspiring.
What I would like to do is something I have come to call a "moving painting" concept. This leans heavily on extremely high frame rate shooting with specially designed camera systems to capture incredibly short slices of time and draw out each moment, holding our viewers' attention — depicting moments that feel extraordinary.
Put bluntly, this is super slow motion — but with an emotional and grounded touch.
So how does that integrate into our idea? Let's go through the key elements in order:
We begin with the archival footage, as breaking through the banners is going to be our key motif, carrying through both the film and the campaign. It's a build of tension, a flashing of cuts….
10,000km
20,000km
30,000km
We are seeing the man in motion, the history of the foundation coming to life. Cut, cut, cut, then… A breath —
We are in our "moving painting" world.
It's a blank-canvas space — something industrial and neutral.
Rain, direct light, pooling water… We are seeing macro details of a wheelchair moving through heavy rain. A hand grasping the pushrim, the rubber tyre spraying water, a banner floating through the frame — we can make out a portion of "40,000km."
We cut to falling reflective confetti, a shout of victory from a sweat-drenched face — then cut wide to reveal Leo Sammarelli, in boxing garb, raising a belt. Confetti drifts around him, and slowly descending behind him is the broken banner reading "CHANGE ATTITUDES"
One more cut to a hand gripping a bar, a clenched brow, dust, dirt, and debris flying around a rider on an adaptive motorised wheelchair. Sparks fly from the chair as the rider bears down, a banner reading "SET NEW STANDARDS" breaking away behind them as we slam cut back to —
Another cut: We see a hand grasping a mobility cane — and a diploma scroll. We catch camera flashes on a smiling face… Cut wide to reveal a graduate who is blind, wearing a gown and cap. Around them, scores of graduation caps rise and fall in super slow motion. A banner reading "INSPIRE HOPE" slowly floats down behind them, broken.
Downpour rain. We are back where we started. A head rises and falls with the motion of a wheelchair; we can’t see them through the rain. The music swells. A close-up on the head rising again — It's Rick, heading towards the ultimate goal.
An unbroken banner reading "A WORLD WITHOUT BARRIERS."
Cut to supers.
Some notes on some alternative scenes:
What I think is strong about this concept is that we can assign scenes for different banners. So long as each of the scenes have a “slow motion” element to them that works for our high frame rate and make sense within our story world.
I feel strongly about Leo’s scene as well as our graduation scene, but perhaps some discussion around the middle scene is worth having.
Perhaps a more researched, focused scene around the banner “FUND RESEARCH” is worth talking about. Perhaps it’s someone using an exoskeleton to move through the room. This human motion is likely to slow to have a dynamic phantom element, but I like the idea of bringing in some haze, wind, and falling snow to symbolise perseverance through training to use new technologies.
Another could be something more construction-focused, paired with the banner of “SET NEW STANDARDS” -- We could see someone, mayb a prosthetic user, bringing a sledgehammer down on a curb or concrete obstacle that reads something that would limit accessibility in that space. A symbol for breaking down the old and being a part of building the new.
Worth having a chat on these!
Top level, here are my notes regarding this approach:
This idea works well within our budget while making something that feels big, epic, and cinematic. When it comes down to the actual production process, however, we're keeping things simple. My goal is to get a studio like Peacemaker willing to donate their time, allowing us to use as much of their in-house equipment as possible. Then it becomes a case of bringing in the talent, our "slow motion elements" — haze, rain, debris, confetti, etc. — and our small crew.
Our banners should be long, cloth, and really eye-catching, in satin or some other material that catches the light. We should discuss this more together!
A note on casting: I think it’s great that we can tap Leo for his boxing scene, and would love to see if Tara wants to do our exoskeleton or our research-based motor wheelchair scene. For the graduation scene, I would love to be able to cast someone from the Rick Hansen network who actually has this lived experience. I am hoping we can find someone whose help or inspiration from the foundation allowed them to achieve an academic goal!
One last thing to note: these are just scenarios that came to mind given the banners; I think it’s worth a discussion to see if there is anything that we can come up with together that fits the style. I would, however, encourage thinking of things that really work for this “moving painting” style -- things that have a natural element of slow-motion texture and scene.
And for music… Maybe I'm crazy, but give something like this a whirl:
Let me know how this is all feeling...
✨
It means so much to be able to dive back into this world and this cause.
I know this is a big swing, but I really believe in making something larger than life — something that reflects the epic nature of the Herculean task the foundation has set out to achieve.
Thank you for trusting me to pitch something like this.
Can't wait to hear what you think and discuss it further