Treatment

Approx. 5 min.
Kelly, Christine, Rachel, Trisha
Format: Live action stop motion. 8-12 fps
Goal: Using stop motion to establish a sinister rhythm with an ordinarily benign object. It is a story about a neglected sweater that takes its revenge on its owner.

Summary:

•Guy gets a package from his Aunt Bea. He opens it to find a really ugly Christmas sweater and promptly tosses it on the floor.

•Slowly pan out from a close-up on the sweater until the whole room is in the frame and use stop motion to depict a passing of time as the sweater gets dirty, collects dust and partially buried with stuff. (He should be moving around the room)

•Guy wakes up and starts to get ready when he sees the sweater on the floor. He picks it up and looks disgusted before tossing it in the trashcan and exits the room.

•The sweater gets angry and crawls out of the trashcan and begins to trash the room. Tossing clothes, books, pulling sheets off the bed, ripping and smearing posters. We hear the guy come home (with slamming door sounds) and the sweater jerks in alarm and goes limp on the ground.

•Guy sees the room and is upset that his room is trashed and calls the police. He answers the door to talk to the policeman. (OTS of policeman)

•After the police leave, he enters the room, sits down at his computer and starts typing. The viewer has to notice that the sweater is now gone.

•Medium close-up of the guy from the front . We slowly see the sweater start to come up from behind him. The sweater suddenly lunges forward, covers his mouth and pulls the guy out of the frame.

•The guy is found dead on the ground wearing the sweater and surrounded by police tape.

>Visual style/method:

The sweater will be very brightly colored in contrast to the background. The style of the animation will low frame rate slop motion so that the person’s motion matches the sweater’s motion. In the beginning, the lighting will look more cheerful and ‘normal’. The lighting will become continually lower key as the video progresses and becoming a yellow-ish grungy color to get a more sinister feel.