Treatment (Actor)

(Completed by Tom Crump)

Film Title

Actor

Theme/Core Idea

This film explores a tough love style relationship between an aspiring actor and a producer.

Outline

In scene one we cut straight in to a montage scene of auditions, Charlie (the aspiring actor) walks in to frame from the right. The producer is off screen but still diegetic. He begins his performance imitating a scene from Goodfellas, from this point on the montage begins cutting to his impersonation of iconic lines spoken by a range of prestigious actors, Marlon Brando, James Dean, Samuel L Jackson, Robert Deniro, Brad Pitt (as Tyler Durden from Fight Club), and Charlie Chaplin. Following on the montage then changes from focusing on the actor to focusing on the Producers rejecting him, all thanking him for his time and saying that they will let him know whether he was successful for his roles.

During scene two we follow Charlie as he gets ready for his audition styled in a montage like sequence. The Scene starts from black with an alarm clock going off. We see the alarm clock on the side table next to Charlie’s bed. He turns it off and gets up. Pieces of scripts are stuck all around his bedroom, on the mirror, on the wall, in the bathroom on his wardrobe. While he brushes his teeth and gets dressed making himself look presentable he is constantly reading the script and going over his lines, practicing how he is going to play the part. He has a clear drive and passion for his craft and its clear during this scene.

Scene three is where the bulk of the film will unravel and is the penultimate scene. We see Charlie sat in a cluttered hallway anxiously waiting to be called in to the audition room. He gets up from his chair and goes to a water fountain across the hall. A gentleman comes and greets him. Here is where we see the Gentleman (Robert a.k.a the producer) begin to question him as to whether he is here for the auditions. Charlie however doesn’t realise that this man is indeed the producer, unaware Charlie responds to his question asking if he was here for the auditions too, soon realising that this man is actually the producer. This is where the tough love relationship between these two characters begin, as their convocation progresses and Robert gives Charlie some advice on not giving up due to rejections from his previous work and tells him a story about how Meryl Streep was turned down from her audition for the role of Ann in King Kong and how pushing her to the edge was what made her so great. Robert then leaves and Charlie returns to his seat. He is then called into the audition room where he is introduced to Robert, as Charlie tries to say that they have previously met Robert ignores him. This is the first sign of the tough love approach that Robert is about to use in order to get the fullest potential out of Charlie. The scene becomes quickly heated as Robert begins to be very cold and direct with Charlie stating that his attempts at reading the lines aren’t good, at first seeming to be putting Charlie down. This continues through the scene with Robert becoming more and more confrontational and harsh in his criticisms, ending with Robert whispering into Charlies ear that he will never make it in the industry and demanding him to leave. Charlie now put down leaves and goes home wondering what had just happened, as the scene is coming to a close he suddenly has a flash back to the story about Meryl Streep and what Robert had said to him. The scene ends with Charlie simply smiling as he realises what Robert was doing in the audition room.

Appraisal

This script was written by Josh Beattie and is largely inspired by the work of Damian Chazelle and his film Whiplash. It’s taking the idea which Damian had explored in that particular film about a tough love styled relationship between two characters where one character is seemingly pushing the other character to the limit to see if they really have what it takes to become the best. I believe that Josh has shown this style of relationship very well and is very reminiscent of Whiplash whilst remaining an original piece of work. The interesting use of Meryl Streep and a real story about her career, in my opinion helps to maintain the illusion that this scenario could happen in real life and does happen in real life. From a critical analysis stand point I feel that we could have more scenes establishing this relationship from the beginning of the film and using the progression of the film to further solidify the relationship between the two characters. Overall the film is a concrete idea and has had a lot of thought put into it in order to create and develop these two characters.