Daniel Bedingfield — GOTTA GET THRU THIS
A Treatment by Ryan Wooding
*Looking into camera*
The whole film will be set in a mixture of two-dimensional…and three dimensional environments,
using traditional drawn animation techniques, against a physical set.
The Narrative
A small lifeless toy bear is laying alone on a brightly coloured backdrop. The camera slowly pans in
onto him, focusing in on his chest - just about where the human heart would be. This area of his
chest is then opened up, to reveal the stuffing inside. Tucked away in this stuffing is a tiny,
motionless heart - either drawn or made of modelling clay…
—
As the instantly recognisable first few beats of the song begin to play, the heart begins to beat in
time with the music.
—
Then…suddenly as the drums kick in, the bear shoots up, his chest is closed and his eyes open -
with a bewildered kind of a gaze upon his face. The bear is then seen looking down to his paws…
left, then right. He begins to stand up, just in time for the first line of the song “I’ve got to get
through this.”
—
The camera then pans around to the back of the, now upright, bear’s head to reveal a surreal
geometric environment before him. Populated by a few 3-D shapes such as cubes and prisms - but
also, oddly, a cactus tree.
—
This is symbolic of a desert-like place, or somewhere that is hard to get out of. As the song implies.
The camera then spins around to show a determined look on our hero’s face. And then back around
to the back of his head, as he begins to sprint towards the cactus in front of him.
—
As the intensity and speed of the drum beat starts to ramp up, our hero bear then jumps into the
cactus and, seemingly, through it just as the snare drum hits.
—
Our hero has now made it through the cactus and appears to actually inside of it. The environment
should now be a shade of green, with moodier lighting to suggest to the viewer that we are now, in
fact, inside of something.
—
Our bear, after quickly looking around, then begins to run forwards as we follow him side on - a
little like a platform video game. The wall behind him is covered with little yellow holes, which
indicate the yellow spikes of the cactus on the outside.
—
[INSERT CLIP OF LITTLE BIG PLANET]
—
As the verse of the song continues, the platform we see then begins to steepen as he makes his
way across it. And the look on our hero’s face becomes much more anguished as this happens. This
continues until our bear is scaling an almost mountain-like platform, incredibly steep as his pace
slows.
—
Fortunately for our hero, just before the line “give me just a second, and I’ll be alright” the platform
begins to ease, and level out as we find our hero laying on his back. The camera now over his face
as he begins panting, and resting.
—
*Looking into camera*
This particular scene is intended to symbolise the inner-turmoil of the mind…and how quickly it
can become unbalanced, if we don’t allow ourselves time to think and recover.
—
Back in our created environment, our bear is about the encounter his second ordeal. Still laying on
his back, yellow spikes begin falling towards him from above, and he struggles from side to side to
dodge them as they stick into the ground — cracking it like ice.
—
As the cracks deepen, the floor opens and our hero is plunged through it – clutching on the spikes
as he begins to fall, signalled by the final hit of the bass drum. As the floor opens, the background
is converts from the green, to a more tropical pink.
—
The camera retains its position as our hero falls further downwards, getting smaller and smaller
as the scene progresses. The shot then suddenly cuts to our bear, mid-fall, clinging onto his spike
in an isometric view. And then zooms in again to show our bear clearly falling at some speed.
—
[INSERT CLIP OF ANIMATED WRESTLERS FALLING]
As each of the yellow spikes begin to plummet to the ground, we see them disintegrate and
disappear. Our hero, clearly in trouble, has to clamber from spike to spike before it too falls apart
from pressure of falling.
—
This happens a total of three or four times before our camera quickly cuts to underneath the
action, looking upwards from a new floor level. We can then begin to see our hero above us,
hurtling towards the ground.
—
He finally then hits the floor with an almighty thud, as the bass drum signals the end of the verse
and the final chorus begins to open.
—
As the song begins to close, the camera, looking at our bear from above once again…spins around
his head as he lay motionless for a second, before he slowly opens his eyes. The camera zooms out
ever so slightly, to reveal that we are now back in the real world, and the bear is simply laying on
his owner’s bed and the camera fades to black.
—
END