Saturday, 16 February 2013

Treatment


Working title: TANGO
Length: 2 minutes and 5-10 minutes
Format: Documentary
Hook or tag line: There’s Only One Tango Man




Short synopsis (25-50 words):
What is the film about?

The film is centred on Tango Man (Paul Gregory) a well known Sheffield Wednesday fan (who takes his top off) and who the fans share mixed opinions of. The 2 minute aims to show what Tango is most known for – being rowdy at football matches and then in the 10 minute we hope to explore this character deeper and delve into the man behind the big persona and belly and maybe show that he is not just a noisy football hooligan as some people might perceive him as.



Mid-Length synopsis/outline (250 words):
What is the core subject matter of your film? How will the story unfold? What are the themes/issues/arguments you are trying to uncover? Who are the key contributors? What makes them interesting? What will we learn about them? Use visual language the aim is to bring the story alive and the characters off the page.

The film is going to be about Tango who is an avid supporter of Sheffield Wednesday football club and who has built up quite a name for himself over the last 2 decades for his antics at the matches. It all started in the 90’s when he began to take his top off at every match and because of his bald head (similar to that of the advert) was then given the name Tango Man and this then he has become a bit of a celebrity due to his boisterous behaviour at matches of which he never misses a game. The story will begin a bit ambiguously by showing a man walking down the street of whom we know nothing about he will then stop and the camera will pan up to reveal behind him the Sheffield Wednesday emblem on the stadium from this it will then cut to a fast pace montage showing what he gets up to on match days with quotes/snippets from newspapers about him being banned etc and maybe sound bites over the top of fans/mates opinions of him it will then end with an empty stadium with the sounds of Tango and the crowd slowly dying away over the top. The 10 minute film will then observe him outside football, his home life – what he does for a living, what kind of a person is he when he’s not at games, what he thinks about himself and the bad press he gets. I also want to include as many different interviews and opinions as possible on him from different sources including friends, fans, rival fans, family, people who work at SWFC (stewards, players etc) basically as many views and people as we can get. From the research I’ve done I feel that are very split opinions on this man so I would like to find out for myself (after seeing him myself at football matches) what is he really like is he just a very passionate man who gets carried away or he is someone looking to cause trouble and grab attention.








Analysis of approach (500 words):
How will you make this film? What will it look and sound like? What is its style? What are the techniques used? What works were inspirational to the film? What works does it resemble? What is its mood? Its ambience?  Demonstrate enthusiasm and a distinctive visual/aural voice here. Include references to TWO films that you have watched as research.

I want to really get involved with this film in terms of really getting stuck in and getting into the thick of it – I want to show as many different scenarios as I can to really build up a true and whole picture of Tango. This will mean going to matches, interviewing him and anyone else that may have an opinion or thought, going to his home town of Wolverhampton and trying to find out as much about him as possible and as far as he will let us.
I want it to be fun and lively to represent what his character is with lots of sounds of the crowds and ambient noises and also the band that also play at every match. I want the 2 minute poetic film to have contrasts so it starts relatively slow and then builds up to the montage of action and also use split screens to emphasise the energy of this man and also of football matches themselves. I think the 10 minute film may be a bit calmer as we want to show the other side of the character – a hard working man that will probably lead quite a normal life away from the football games. I still want it to be quite pacey though so when he’s being interviewed it might cut to him at a football match or doing something else and also inter-cut with the views of other people so there isn’t just a long interview. The other week I was watching The Shooting Gallery on Channel 4 which shows a few short documentaries about a different subject each week and I happened to catch one about sport and in it was a short documentary called The Smell of Football (Daniel Musty) about a very passionate and famous fan in Portsmouth and I like the way it was set out as firstly they showed him in the library as his normal day job is a librarian, it then shows his home with all his Portsmouth memorabilia that’s fills the room and then he starts to get ready into his very flamboyant outfit which includes a wig, fakes tattoos, face and much more – which is one of the main reasons he gets quite a lot of attention; the documentary then ends with him at the football stadium. I also quite like the mood of the film because the fan is talking about different elements of being a fan and his passionate throughout the whole film even over the shots of him celebrating (in his crazy outfit) in the crowd which is quite a contrast to his calm voice over the top. I think this film will be similar to ours in the way that we too want to show his mad, passionate side but also show beneath there is a very calm, rational and relatively normal man. There’s Only One Barry Fry is a feature length documentary that follows Barry Fry and his time as Peterborough United’s manager. What I liked about this documentary is when it starts there’s a shot of a door that says home team and then a light goes on and then you are in footballers dressing room but no one’s in it and there’s no sound just the footballers kits hanging there. Barry Fry’s voice then comes in over the top of different cutaways of the dressing room and it has quite a poetic feel about it as I like the use of lots of different cutaways to help build up an image of football and the narration over the top.

References:

1)     The Shooting Gallery

2)     There’s Only One Barry Fry











Filmmaker biography (50-100 words) :
What kind of documentary maker or filmmaker are you? What are the themes in your work? How do you approach work? Do you have any awards?


I have not yet established myself as a documentary filmmaker yet but I like the idea of documenting people or a subject who are/that is maybe quite well-known and have a certain name for themselves or is perceived a certain way and then trying to give people a new or different perspective on that person/thing to what they already thought they knew. I think a good way to approach a documentary is to be open minded and try and include as many sources as possible to try and gain an all round view on something as it’s always interesting to hear different sides and opinions from all sorts of different people.

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