Group Project ‘Journey’ Treatment/Proposal
Inspired by the famous story of Odysseus of Ithaca, a student sets out on the arduous task of rounding up his impressionable set of friends and gaining successful entrance to a club where meanwhile his girlfriend awaits, pestered by various desperate suitors.
A male student, preparing for a night out, receives a text from his girlfriend who waits at the chosen club of the night. Informed that his woman is rapidly becoming a target for drooling single men, he takes a quick course of action and attempts rounds up his friends to make his way to the club. However getting them and himself there proves more difficult than first anticipated.
TEXT: ‘...we visited the Lotus Eaters, and three of my crew tasted this strange plant. They lost all desire to return home and had to be carried off by force’
Upon entering the room where his friends wait to begin the night he discovers that 3 of his ‘crew’ are incredibly stoned and reluctant to join him on this night out after the debilitating influence of the stoners. After some dispute and force, the three finally accept and they make their way into the night.
TEXT: ‘Next we met the Keeper of the Winds, who sent us on our way with a steady breeze. He'd given me a leather bag, which my crew mistook for booty. They opened it and released a hurricane that blew us back to where we'd started. ‘
Arriving outside the crew discover getting to the club will mean walking through cold and wind. There is argument as to whether to continue but a route plan is made to avoid these conditions. All the while, last entry time to the club is looming and the main character’s girl is increasingly pestered by the pervs.
TEXT: ‘We ended up among the Laestrygonians, giants who bombarded our fleet with boulders and gobbled down our shipmates.’
As a condition of the short route to the club, the crew have to make their way through a notoriously dodgy alleyway, where they are pelted with stones by some chavs lurking in the shadows. Again, this slows their journey.
TEXT: ‘The few survivors put in at the island of the enchantress Circe. My men were entertained by her and then, with a wave of her wand, turned into swine. ‘
After surviving the pelting, a couple of members notice a local take away with an attractive woman inside. Succumbing to their munchies, they stop for burgers and chips and eat like swine, much to the dismay of the character who must arrive at this club.
TEXT: ‘At sea once more we had to pass the Sirens, whose sweet singing lures sailors to their doom.’
The group of friends are led astray again by a group of girls waiting in the street. The main character leads his friends on and they arrive at the club.
TEXT: ‘The herdsman turned out to be as big as a barn, with a single glaring eye in his forehead. This Cyclops promptly ate two of my men for dinner’
Finally arriving at the doors, the crew notice a large queue and a menacing bouncer searching people in a brutish way. Horrified, they devise a plan.
TEXT: ‘We escaped his groping by clinging to the undersides of his goats’
They gain entrance to the club by crouching and crawling through the overwhelming number of people entering.
Once inside, the main character is finally able to reach his girlfriend and disperse the fiendish characters who harass her. They set off looking cheery, ready for a good night.
Style:
The overall tone of the film is to be light hearted and amusing. The sections of the film are to be exaggerated and over the top, dramatised as much as possible to interject the drama and grand scale of the original story into the everyday, modern interpretation conveyed in this film. For example loud and dramatic sound for the bad whether section even if the weather is not this dramatic when filming etc. And extreme close ups of eating in the take away section to emphasise the ‘swine’ aspect stated in the quotation, extreme loud levels of sound during the chav section and low angle shots to reflect the ‘giants’ stated in the quoatation etc. There is also to be a constant feeling of urgency reflected by frequent cuts to the girl waiting at bar/club and an urgent/distressed look on the face of the main character.
Audience:
The perceived audience for this film is a younger age bracket i.e. 16-30, particularly students who could relate to the ideas in this film. I envisage this film being shown in areas frequented by students e.g. screening at university showrooms and unions.
