Treatment

LIAR, LIAR, GHOST

You may be familiar with the story of ‘The boy who cried wolf’, but are you ready for the tale of the girl who cried Ghost?

A story by Maddy Finlay-Hudson, Julia Malamoo and Julia Durham

KEY CHARACTERS:

Nathalie Kors is a St. Hildas Student who lives in the on-site boarding house; she is very laid back and fairly lethargic. Her peers avoid her because she can be both immature and rude and often finds amusement in pranking others. She is average height, with blue eyes and golden brown hair; she has a fairly squared jaw, with a fair complexion and braces. Nathalie is haunted by a recurring dream from her childhood, in which a shadowy figure would try and pull her away with it, because of this she finds comfort in her fears by mocking others and making crude jokes about ghosts living in the dorm.

ADDITIONAL CHARACTERS:

Nathalie’s dorm mates consist of Gabby Burey, Olivia Bathurst, Kelsey Sheekey, Georgia Phillips and Julia Durham. Olivia, Georgia and Julia are often victims of Nathalie’s pranks and are not found of her. Gabby and Kelsey, on the other hand, are rowers and usually angered by Nathalie when her pranks cause them to be awake much earlier than they are expected to be for training.

KEY LOCATIONS:

Dorm Setting:  Nathalie’s room is located in back corner of the big open room, there is a small section of the large French window inside the half walls of her room, beneath it is her bed with a small walkway and a desk opposite. Her room is one of the smaller rooms inside the dorm and has poorer light than the rest, meaning the light over the desk is the main source of brightness in her room.

Hallway/Bathroom:  The hallway is in the boarding house, during daytime it is flooded by natural light, as there are windows all the way down the outer wall however at night it is unlit and the darkness offers no natural light. There is a white door at the end, which opens up to the top of a long, red, carpeted staircase that leads into an abandoned reception area. From here there is a few more stairs leading to a single toilet outside, due to the fact the upstairs toilets are ‘out of order.’

The film begins with white title reading ‘The Girl That Cried Ghost’ that fades in over a black background. The title and the black background then fades out to reveal a shot of Nathalie in a dark, dimly lit dormitory setting, placing a bucket of water on top of a cupboard. The shot then cuts to a close up of her hand tying a piece of string around the door handle. The sound of someone walking up the stairs startles her, as another close-up of her face is shown as she looks side to side. Nathalie then runs out of the room, runs around the corner and into a different room just down the small hallway. The footsteps begin to come louder as a girl approaches the room with the bucket of water. She sighs as she looks up and sees the obvious bucket on top of her cupboard. She calls out Nathalie’s name as she laughs at the failed prank. Nathalie sighs as she walks around the corner to see her laughing victim, Gabby Burey. Just as Nathalie is about to take the bucket of water down from the top of the cupboard, she hears a call from a supervisor downstairs saying it’s time to go to school. Nathalie grabs her bag and her schoolbooks and leaves the boarding house as the shot fades away to black.

After a short break, a shot of Nathalie opening the boarding house’s door and walking inside fades back in from the black background. She looks down at a piece of paper in her hand that has a messy list of pranks written down on it in pencil. All of them are crossed out except for one, which reads ‘The Girl Who Cried Ghost’. Nathalie looks back up from the piece of paper and casually strolls down the main boarding house hallways with a smile on her face. The shot cuts to a nighttime setting of the dormitory. The dorm is poorly lit, and looks quite spooky with the beams of light form the moonshining through the windows. The camera moves along through the dorm in a first person/point of view shot. It continues through the dorms until it reaches Nathalie’s to a room. It opens the door slowly and turns to look at Nathalie where she is in her bed sound asleep. The shot cuts to another shot in Nathalie’s point of view. It shows her suddenly opening her eyes, cutting out of a black shot and shows the sudden movement of her sitting up out of her bed. She sighs and wipes her forehead in relief. She reaches over to her desk and picks up the same piece of paper that she was holding earlier and looks straight at the prank named ‘The Girl Who Cried Ghost’. She raises her hands up to her face and begins to yell out, ‘Ghost! Ghost!’ The sound of people jumping up from their beds and screaming fill the dormitory, then fades to the feint sound of giggling from Nathalie’s room and the sighs of her dorm mates. 

The screen then cuts to black then into the morning of the next day. A mid close-up follows Nathalie as she walks down her hall. In the background, a group of girls are crowded around mocking Nathalie and talking about how much they hate her. A close up of Nathalie’s face going glum and as she walks away they girls start to mimic her.

A side shot of Nathalie checking her emails is the start of the next scene. It zooms in closely on her typing on her laptop and fiddling around. Another third person shot is used to show her opening an email. The email is a chain mail about a girl who lied to much. Nathalie just disregards the chain mail as she usually does and falls asleep. Again, she wakes up in the middle of the night to find herself covered in sweat and gasping for air. She wipes her forehead and decides she’s going to the bathroom. as she’s washing her hands Jane table (the ghost) whispers “Naughty, naughty Nat, I told you not to do that. I have been spying and you have been lying. You should’ve stayed in bed because now you’re as good as dead.” She begins to yell “Help! Help! Ghost!”. Everyone starts to moan and complain about them having rowing in the morning and that they are over her. as she runs out of the bathroom  and up the stairs jane grabs her ankle and drags her down the stairs. the scene then cuts to the boarding staff coming into her room in the morning to find her dead in her bed.