Treatment: Too Late For Poor Timing

Treatment: Too Late For Poor Timing 

Film Title:

Too Late for Poor Timing

Themes / Core idea:

The themes in Too Late for Poor Timing focus on the idea of wanting to relive past events and have a do-over from the perspective of a tragic but also dry and sarcastic protagonist, it plays with the idea of sci-fi elements whilst also poking a bit of fun at them in other media examples, particularly those involving time travel. The main character, Kyle, is putting the final pieces into his time machine and thinking back to his past and his regrets in life particularly those involving his deceased wife, Sarah; this being the main reason he is building the time machine in the first place. It has darkly comedic themes, particularly involving the ending but it also explores deeper themes showing the human condition and a major focus on the idea of regret.

Outline:

The film opens into a warehouse area with low-key lighting in which a man is seen stood behind a desk yelling down the phone; he is frustrated and angry at the person on the other end, which is most prominently heard from his tone of voice and the volume he is speaking at and is explaining how his time travel device isn't like ones from sci-fi films, before slamming the phone down after the man he is speaking to does not seem to be listening, while this is happening the camera surveys the room and shows several key details such as a picture with a younger Kyle and a woman. A tracking shot then travels slowly around the room, and the audience sees previous failed designs, it also shows blood on some designs pinned up on the wall to show despite his dry, sarcastic nature, Kyle is extremely passionate about the project and he is more of a complex character that he will let on. As the phone is being slammed down we hear "Look I'm gonna come over” from the phone, which Kyle clearly doesn't hear through the fact he doesn't react to it and goes straight to working on his device.

He begins to screw a part in and it cuts to a flashback of Kyle when he is much younger in a small office in a room that appears to be part of his house. He is working on a device when a doorway behind him opens and a female voice is heard with her being silhouetted against the light, this is his wife, Sarah. She tells him to come back to bed with him sarcastically dismissing the idea as the work he is doing to create an infinite power supply is more important to which she leaves and sighs behind the door from a profile shot on the other side of the door. It cuts back to him doing final work and lifting up the device with happiness but then cross cuts to an identical shot of him holding up the device in the present with a more miserable look in his face. He then exclaims his plans to go back to when he was younger and doing all the things with Sarah he’d missed out on before comically realising that he “can’t forget the brain wave protector!” which he scrambles around looking for before coming across it on the floor, the device in question is a hat with wires and lights on it. He then explains the importance of the device and how it will allow him to keep his current memories and the things he’d learnt over the last few years of his life as he is dusting it off with his sleeve. He goes on to explain how it would just leave a never-ending cycle of all events playing out an infinite amount of times if he were to not wear it when turning on the device, due to him reliving the last few years of his life again the exact same way since he would have forgotten everything he learned and it would have led to him building the time machine over again forgetting to use the brain wave protector again over and over again for all of time.

It then cuts away to show the passage of time and shows Kyle working hard on his machine. He celebrates with his work on making sure that the time-wave only affects outside the room he is in, meaning he would be able to turn the device off when it gets to the time he wishes it to be. It then shows a day dream sequence of his plan in quick shots, all out of focus to show it just being his imagination, cutting through people frozen in time and then reversing back through time and him exiting the room, de-aging and then going to see Sarah, as it cuts to a close-up shot of Sarah slowly becoming more in focus it cuts back to him stopping daydreaming and regaining focus. Kyle then realises something and explains how he’d need to close the doors and windows or he’ll be stuck in the blast too and he wouldn’t be able to shut it off. He then proceeds to close the windows and noticing that the door is already closed.

It then cuts to a different location with a man seen walking down a darkened hallway from a high angle long shot from the ceiling, he is talking to himself, saying “I’m sorry Kyle, you’re being an idiot” before looking proud about what he’s going to say to him as shown through a stationary mid-shot, this is the man from the phone earlier, Clark. This then cross cuts between Kyle suiting up and wearing his brain wave protector and Clark looking round at a few doors with the cuts getting quicker and quicker as Kyle goes to turn on the device to turn it on and Clark finding the right door saying to Kyle’s laboratory, this is shown through a mid-shot from behind both Kyle and Clark split down the middle of frame to show them both acting almost in unison with Clark reaching for the door as Kyle is reaching for his machine button. It then cuts to Kyle having pressed the button and hearing the door opening behind him, at first his face looks confused but then it closes in on an extreme close-up of his eyes with a quick zoom showing the realisation of what has happened. It then shows the world around him in a frozen state and Kyle staring at the button to turn off the machine. It then shows a close-up of Kyle’s forehead and eyes with his in-head narration being heard with him saying “well fuck…”. Time then begins to reverse rapidly with the entire events of the short film playing out in a wide shot in reverse with it occasionally cutting to Kyle’s forehead screaming “Fuck! Fuck! FUCK!!” over again multiple times. It then cuts to a variety of outside shots of things happening in reverse (birds flying in reverse, Spider regurgitating fly, etc.) It then shows a pan around Kyle shown becoming younger presented as a time-lapse but done through stop motion. This imagery persists with constant narration from Kyle. He says “Somehow I always knew I’d destroy the world”, the imagery then speeds up with imagery of a prehistoric man being seen in a long shot and a wide natural environment shown as an establishing long shot being present and then the frame wildly cuts between a massive array of images (possibly including stock footage) until the frame eventually closes in to a singularity of a light in the middle of frame which then fades away as the credits begin to roll.

The credits are then followed by a shallow focus depth of field shot of the door in Kyle’s lab with the keys there in the door as the dialogue from Clark entering the room from earlier is heard with him saying “Kyle you’re being an idi…(cuts off)” muffled behind the door, this scene is to show how easily it could have been prevented, the door is then opened which covers over the entire frame in blackness, finishing the film.

Approach:

To create the tone and atmosphere in Too Late for Poor Timing I will use a significant amount of long takes for the audience to feel engaged in the film’s world and make it feel real and believable. The film’s sound design will be very mechanical but at the same time warm and lively, the sound will create a somewhat semi-serious tone with the use of metal banging noises but also a partially comedic tone, created using softer sounds, I also aim to have some music involved which will hopefully compliment the semi-serious dark comedy tone. I will use a lot of key framing in my cinematography in order to emphasise the protagonist’s intelligence and focus whilst also doing some rapid camera movement to portray the ‘mad genius’ side of him, I also wish to use a lot of duality imagery in order for the idea of comparing and contrasting the main character from other characters and even his younger self; this element was inspired by the film Looper (Johnson, 2012) with the exploration of the similarities and differences between ‘Old Joe’ and ‘Young Joe’ especially in the scene where they are sat at the diner talking to one another for the first time and how Old Joe sees his young self as selfish and immature when he is the one that is being just as selfish without realising; this is something I would like to capture in the story and particularly in the visuals for my film as well. The overall story is somewhat inspired by Back to The Future (Zemekis, 1985) as well, particularly the scene where he first unveils the DeLorean time machine, and he talks about his younger years with a gleaming sense of nostalgia; I instead wanted to invert this idea with the inventor character for my film being full of remorse and he only looks back to the past with regret, and instead of the Doc Brown character in that film who is eccentric and fun, Kyle (my main character) is meant to be dry, sarcastic and serious for the most part. I am very excited to get this film made, I believe that I have a lot of passion for this project and that I can bring a very unique visual aesthetic to this film that will be appealing and serve the film and narrative as a whole.

Appraisal:

The idea for this film came from a unique train of thought I had thinking about existentialism, I became disturbed and restless over the inevitability of death one night and it was keeping me awake, with this thought however I began to think about time-travel and how impossible it all is as the way I view different times in a way that they are not physically existing properties, I came to a realisation that the only way it could in any way be possible would be by reversing atomic motion using some form of wave. I decided to develop this idea into a short film idea and worked it into a screenplay and eventually developed it into the treatment I wrote. In a sense, this is quite a personal project for me, as I decided to take my thoughts I was overcome with and instead of getting depressed over it, I worked it into something creative and ultimately quite light hearted. I believe that Too Late for Bad Timing will be entertaining for the aspects of dark humour the film plays with and will also possibly be a little thought provoking over some of themes that the film includes.