Description
Write a one-page
synoptic treatmentfor a film based on this week’s assigned short story, Calloway’s Code
Grading Rubric
Grading Rubric
CriteriaRatingsPtsThis criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeNecessary and sufficient detailsDoes your submission cover everything that is necessary and have the sufficient details as required by the handout for this assignment?
25 pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeOriginalityIs your version contributing something original and imaginative? Are you able to turn the short story into something that makes sense as the basis for a good screenplay?
25 pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeWriting, Spelling, GrammarAre you using the appropriate language? Did you double-check your spelling, tense, grammar, and reference formatting to the best of your ability?
25 pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeVisualization of secrecyIs the treatment envisioning ways to visualize processes of encryption and decryption effectively?
25 pts
Total Points: 100
The pitch: synoptic treatment (for weekly assignment)
Take this week?s short story and turn it into a movie pitch, highlighting the necessary details that
are essential for the story to make sense. Show some cinematic style and rhythm, be evocative
in terms of time and place, giving a feel for characters, mood, and visual style.
You are not just re-telling a story, you are aiming for something that is a bit more than a
synopsis, but less than a full treatment. A synopsis is usually a few pages distilling a narrative; a
treatment is a fully detailed explication that gets into the nuts and bolts of how that narrative will
be presented on film. Treatments not only allow decision-makers to evaluate a story?s idea, but
also its intended execution.
The document you submit to canvas should be written in the present tense, marking
how you would adapt the short story to the screen, with particular attention to how you would
present the issue of ?secret communication? on screen.
Your one-page film mini-treatment/synopsis should have the following:
A working title
A short logline (one sentence)
Introduction of key characters
Who, what, when, where and why
Act 1 in a few sentences. Set the scene, dramatize the main conflicts.
Act 2 in a few sentences. Dramatize how conflicts introduced lead to a crisis.
Act 3 in a few sentences. Dramatize the resolution.
Pick a title that gives a clear idea of what genre you are writing in. Preparing a log line for your
screenplay is a basic marketing tool, a technique for boiling down a plotline to its essence. Here
are three questions to ask yourself as you write the logline:
Who is the main character? What does he or she want?
Who or what is standing in the way of the main character?
What makes this story unique?
Please decide at the outset whether you will preserve the period setting of the short story, or
update it for a contemporary feel. If you update it, give some thought to how that works. You
may use traditional scene slugs for each scene as an ?INT.? or ?EXT.? just as you would in a
screenplay. Tell the story, don?t explain it. You cannot tell us a character?s thoughts, provide
biographical background, or communicate any other information not readily available to the
viewer. Please remember that even without dialogue, you can ? and should ? put as much
emotional content into your scenes. Please neither copy nor invent dialogue, but succinctly
describe the dialogue that would need to be written to develop a fully-fledged screen play.
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