Nayani Vijayaratnam

Treatment
Production:
Our short film is called Dear Mum and focuses on the life of 23
year old, Tanya Brooks, who struggles to accept the death of her
mother. As the theme of our short film focuses on relationship
between a mother and a daughter we felt that the film would be
most effective if it were to be released on mothers day. In terms of
marketing, we will be promoting our short films via the Internet on
sites such as Youtube, Twitter and Instagram. This would probably be
the most efficient platform to market our short film as our target
audience 12-35 are young and therefore stereotypically spend
majority of their time on social media. This method of advertising
ensures that our target audience will view our production. An
advantage of this is that, as all members of the group have social
media accounts, we all have a clear understanding of how to use the
different social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat.
Furthermore, in order to further increase publicity for our short film
we will be advertising through newspapers such as The Metro
which is free and widely available to people of all ages as well as
online blogs which is a popular platform within todays society and is
widely read by young people. This guarantees that our target
audience will be able to access our short film.
Genre:
The genre of our short film is a drama, which we believe is a suitable
genre for our wide target audience of 12-35. Furthermore, as it is a
drama based on a true story, it makes our production more realistic
and relatable to our target audience, which may encourage people
to watch our film. This connection, which the audience is able to
form with our protagonist, Tanya Brooks, allows our short film to be
popular and successfully achieves one of the conventions of a
drama film. We have decided not to include any other sub-genres
such as comedy or romance within our film as we felt that it may
take away the seriousness and emotion that we wanted to portray
around the topic of cancer and the loss of a loved one.
Duration:
As our task was to create a short film our product will be 5 minutes
long, which means that we have to ensure that the 5minutes are
interesting and captivating so that our audience dont lose interest
halfway. I believe is long enough for us to provide the audience with
a form of escape and entertainment as we take them on a journey,
without being too long so that the viewers get bored.
Target Audience:
The target audience for our short film is between the ages of 12 and
35 of both genders. We are aware that as all our characters are
female, our product may naturally appeal to females yet the

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message and concept of our production is relatable to a
varied age group and both genders. This makes it suitable for both
genders. In addition to this, the location that we used such as a park
and caf are urban locations, which are used by our target
audience, which makes our production more relatable. Our short film
is aimed at individuals who belong to the socio-economic groups C1,
C2, D and E as these groups consist of people who would be more
likely to know of Future Shorts, which is the platform on which we
will be distributing our production. In addition to this individuals who
belong to the higher socio-economic groups such as A and B may
not have the time to watch our short film.
The age certification of our film is 12A due to the mature context
present within our film which makes our production unsuitable for
young children which is why we decided not to rate our film PG.
However, as our film does not include any explicit visuals or strong
language we felt that it would be inappropriate to rate our film a 15.
Therefore, I believe the certification of 12A is fitting for our short
film and covers our target audience, while including the codes and
conventions of a drama.
Context:
We decided to center our short film on the story of a friend of ours
who recently lost her mother to cancer, which induced us to do our
own research and found that 1 in 8 women get breast cancer, which
is a shocking statistic, which influenced the idea of our production.
We felt that this would also target individuals who had/had cancer or
know someone who has had/has cancer and encourage them to
watch our production.
Outline:
The short film follows the life of a young girl who has lost her
mother due to cancer. Tanya, our main protagonist is writing a letter
to her mum a year after her death reminiscing on their time
together and writing all the things that she wished she said and
done differently. There are various flashbacks throughout, of their
time together. The short film opens with Tanya entering her kitchen
and taking out a bottle of wine, from which the audience can
identify that Tanya has turned to alcohol as a form f escape from the
reality the her mother has passed away. Tanya in her bedroom then
follows this as she begins her letter. The voice over says, So here it
goes Dear Mum which is then followed by several flashbacks of
Tanya and her mother Angela. The audience see young Tanya going
to the park with her mother, learning how to read and write, playing
dress up etc. with her mum which is interrupted by cuts to present
day showing Tanyas pain, knowing that she will never get to share
moments like that with her mother again. A t this point in the voice
over she realizes this as says, youll never get to see me have my
first child your grandchild. The short film ends with Tanya visiting

Nayani Vijayaratnam
her mothers grave with the letter and pink flowers- her
mothers favourite- and placing them on her stone, vowing to her
mother that she will make her proud. The letter symbolizes Tanya
coming to terms with her mothers death and has an optimistic
ending, which juxtaposes the negative theme of death.
Actors:
The actors who embody the role of Angela Brooks (Becky Edwards)
and older Tanya Brooks (Danisha Mahandru) have had previous
acting experience. Becky Edwards had been in several other
productions before and her audition for the role was impressive as
she was able to work comfortably with younger Tanya which is a key
characteristic for the role of a mother. Danisha Mahandru is an A
Level Drama student who s pursuing a career in the field of acting
and therefore was very enthusiastic towards the role and was
impressive in her audition as she was confident and her facial
expressions were strong. The role of younger Tanya Brooks is played
by 5 year old Violet Woodland who although having no previous
experience tried her best to embody her character. Her positive
attitude made it very easy for us to communicate with her in order
to guide her.
Visual element:
There is high key lighting throughout our short film to create a stark
contrast between the light and the theme of death within our
production. We aimed to use natural lighting as much as possible to
create a more everyday feel and add to the realism. There is a
change of lighting in the flashback scenes as there is a white filter,
which creates a dream-like effect. The use of white symbolises the
idea of heaven, which is a motif for her mothers death. We have to
ensure that there is enough natural light available to us to make
sure that the characters are easily visible so that the audience is
able to identify their facial expressions and body language.
Furthermore, due to the difference in light in each of the locations
we may have to adjust the lighting further during the editing
process in order to ensure that our work maintains a high quality
and looks professional.
Camerawork:
We are planning to use a variety of shots, movement and angles to
captivate the audience throughout the 5-minute short film. As Dear
Mum follows the life of Tanya, we will be using a range of close ups,
point of view and over the shoulder shots to provide the audience
an insight and a closer look to her life. Through this close interaction
between the character and the audience we aimed to allow the
audience feel empathy towards Tanya. We also need to ensure that
we do not break the 180-degree rule, as this would interrupt the
continuity of our short film and include different angles to depict
Tanyas vulnerability. In addition to this, we will also be including

Nayani Vijayaratnam
close ups of the letter to allow the audience to read for
themselves with the support of the voiceover which will aid the
audiences understanding of Tanyas thoughts and emotions.
Editing:
We will be using Final Cut Pro X Software to edit our footage. This is
the final process to completing our production and is essential to
ensure that it is done properly as it affects the over all quality of our
production. We will be completing a first draft so that we can get
feedback on our technical skills and improve our areas of weakness
in terms of editing. We had to focus on the colouring and lighting of
our footage to ensure they all matched and that the audience would
be able to identify a clear contrast between the present day scenes
and the flashback scenes. In addition to this, as our short film was
only 5 minutes we had to take this into consideration and ensure
that we did not include any long shots that would be wasting time
when instead we could include shorter clips that could aid the
audiences understanding and portray the narrative clearly.

Setting:
Following the theme of family, we felt that it would be fitting to use
a home as one of our main locations, due to this we will be using
two different homes; Tanyas current home and her childhood home
in which we will be filming flashback scenes to when she was
younger. While Tanya is writing the letter she will be in her bedroom
as it is her personal space and connotes to the audience that she is
alone allowing herself to reflect on her moments with her late
mother. In addition to this we will be using public places such as a
park and graveyard for which we had to take into consideration
other people around. This is very important, as we will be filming in
a park where young children are likely to be present, which means
we may have to receive verbal confirmation from parents to film
around their children or politely ask for them to move out of the
frame.
Props:
We will be using a variety of props to reflect Tanyas childhood such
as a childrens book and a tiara. However the main props, which we
will be incorporating, are the pink flowers and the letter, which
Tanya wrote for her mother. The flowers possess positive
connotations and is a motif for Tanya and her mothers happy and
strong relationship, which Tanya will cherish forever. The letter is a
symbol for Tanya accepting the loss of her mother and deciding to
move on. We purposely chose to end with the letter as it contrasts
the opening in which we used the alcohol to show her lack of
stability yet towards the end the audience can conclude that Tanya

Nayani Vijayaratnam
has found peace with her mothers death and is attempting
to be in control of her life again.
Costume:
The costumes that will be worn will be modern and up to date with
todays time. However, it may alter depending on the characters
locations, for example, when younger Tanya goes to the park she is
seen wearing a jacket where as when she is at home she is in her
nightgown. This adds to the verisimilitude of our production.
Audio element:
We are going to use slow non-diegetic music to emphasize Tanyas
reflective and upset mood, which will mainly consist of the piano as
it contains connotations of love and has a soft tone in comparison to
other instruments such as the drums, which will emphasise the
emotion present. We will have this score note throughout the short
film but will be adjusting the volume during the editing process to
ensure that the diegetic voiceover can be heard which is a key
element. The voice over will allow the audience to understand the
narrative and hear Tanyas feelings, which will enable them to
connect with her character.
Representation:
We have decided to include some of the main conventions of a
drama genre within our film to attract our target audience such as
the clear real-life event, which has occurred, and the raw emotion
that is present. In addition to this, our main protagonist is portrayed
as weak and fragile towards the beginning of the letter yet as the
story unfolds we see Tanya attempting to gain control of her life and
see a stronger side to her. This depicts a stereotypical and a
countertypical perception of women as Tanya alters from a position
of vulnerability to a position of dominance. The audience identifies
younger Tanya as innocent due to her age, which is what makes the
audience grow to like her as she takes on the role of the victim
within the production which is a stereotypical depiction of children
as it is common within drama films for the younger characters to be
affected the most by the evil/ darkness surrounding them.
Institutions:
Our production company is called Storm Studios. We wanted to
come up with something that would have dark connotations to
reflect the dark themes our short films would be focusing on such as
death and act as a motif for the grief that is present within our short
film.
The use of alliteration makes our production company name catchy
and memorable, which is fundamental when competing for the
attention of our target audience against other similar independent

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production companies. The contrast between the dark
image and white writing is practical as it allows the audience to
clearly identify the name of our production company yet, also
insinuates hope which, may be present within the darkness. For our
main protagonist, Tanya Brooks, this hope comes from her belief
that her mother, Angela Brooks, is still watching over her and her
determination to make her mother proud.