Friday, 13 October 2017

Developed initial idea no.2 - Thanatos

Working title: Thanatos

Approx. run time: 10 minutes

Genre: Thriller

Target Audience: 15+ with no specific gender target but it's likely to attract more men than women. People that like psychological thrillers and dialogue heavy movies.

Logline: Pick wisely/Who goes first/make your choice

Suggested cast:
   - Charles "Thanatos" Smith - A white, blonde early 30 year old male, with glasses and an average
      body structure - not too stocky or big. Has to put across a similarly chilling performance to
      Antony Hopkins in "Hannibal" as well as portraying a two different characters as the battle
      between who's in charge of Charles' body intensifies.
   - April Smith - Innocent looking but devious white woman in her 20's. They have to be able to have
     a massive change in emotions in a short space of time as this character is very dynamic and has
     massive mood swings throughout the short film.
   - Alice Worthington - A female that can deliver a very emotional performance as she has to be able
     to cry through a lot of the performance.
   - Kristofer "Kris" Dagursson - Brown haired male with a great range and can portrayal the feelings his character would be going through. Dialogue is the most important part of this project so they've got to be able to deliver their lines as well as their actions convincingly as he will be going through a lot of emotion throughout the performance: Grief, mischief, sorrow, hatred, innocence and love.

Setting: any dark room with a good central light, e.g. a snooker place

Order of events:
     - Hostages wake up
     - Charles walks in and April appears in a couple of scenes
     - Charles gives Kristofer the choice of who's going to get shot first
     - Kristofer is trying to negotiate as Alice panics but April is constantly influencing Charles'
       decision even when he doesn't want to hurt anyone.
     - Kris says he'll get shot first
     - The gun that Kris gets shot with was one with a blank
     - Kris doesn't want to kill Alice and Charles picks a gun for him and about to shoot Alice before
       Kris shouts at him to swap the guns because he things the one Charles is using has a bullet in it.
     - A bang goes off and the screen goes black not revealing the outcome.

Plot pointers:
     - A couple are kept hostage in a dark room not knowing why they are there
     - A man is willing to give the couple the chance to live as only one of the guns had a bullet in it.
     - The man is motivated by the hallucinations he has of his fiancĂ© and doesn't want other couples to
        find happiness because he never fully got it.
     - The man, Charles, is letting Kristofer decide who is going to get shot first, will he be a man and
       take it for the woman, or will he be a gentleman and let ladies go first
     - If Kris goes first, Alice will pick the gun that hell get shot with, if Alice goes first, Kris will
       decide what gun she'll get shot with.
     - What will Kris choose

Character profile:

     - Charles "Thanatos" Smith - a white male in his late 30's/early 40's. he uses Thanatos as a fake name to describe himself and his bloodlust. Thanatos means "He who brings death", Charles uses this name as he feels it seperates the two personalities of loving Charles and the deadly Thanatos. He's a bit of a mess with his messy mucky blond hair, glasses and stubble. Traumatised by the death of his FiancĂ©, April (His April moon), he has hallucinations of her telling him what to do, and he abides by the orders as he blames himself for her murder. He feels like April and him were the perfect couple and no one can and should ever be as happy as they were before she died. If they can't be together, no one can.

Related image
Alie from Season 3 of "The 100"
     - April Smith - A brunette woman in her late 20's/early 30's, with no specific race at the moment, she's the reason Charles kills. She's the hallucination Thanatos has and orders him to do things he's doesn't always agree with. April has been dead for roughly 10 years. She died when Charles took her out to dinner and a movie, even when she insisted to have a night in. She was one of many to be shot in a mass shooting done by a man who shot himself after the act. Her clothing is going to be the last outfit she wore before she dies. Whether that's going to be her hipster lumberjack look, her elegant dress or just casual cloths, is to be decided but shes going to have a blood stain on her clothing to show where she got shot. She's massively inspired by Alie from the 3rd season of "The 100", however she's more aggressive and acts more like a human than just an A.I, both with her body posture and her dialogue.

     - Alice Worthington - The scared girl that's been captured and kept hostage by Charles. the aesthetics are not very specific as it only requires a female with preferably medium to long hair.

     - Kristofer "Kris" Dagursson - the Icelandic male hostage who's been captured by the mad Charles along with his girlfriend. He's a toned brown haired man with glasses. A rational and calm guy that tries to negotiate with Charles about being set free. Although he comes off as a calm person, his attitude will change when he gets frustrated with Charles forcing him to make a choice.



Detailed story:
     - A couple wake up in a dark room with one snooker light hanging above both of them, tied up to
       a chair, and a bit messed up. The woman - Alice - wakes up first in shock and looks around and
       then tries to wake up the man - Kris.
     - They both scream, calling for help, only to hear other people in the next room screaming for help
       as well, before a bang followed by crying and the couple go silent with shock and realising
       they're actually in danger
     - the two have a conversation about how they got there whilst the woman starts to panic a little.
     - they hear a man screaming "no!" and weeping in the next room before a door slamming
     - The door to their rooms shortly after and a man in a back trouser, white shirt with rolled up
       sleeves and the first button is unbuttoned with a messy and bloody apron on. He walks in
       combing his hair and is visibly nervous/skitterish/shaking.
     - when he walks in he signs as he says "Oh you're still here? you should've really left, now your
       next"
     - the couple are silent and fazed my the man before Tom asks what they are doing there and who
       the man is.
     - The man repeats what the newly emerged April says to him and says his name is Thanatos
       meaning someone who has been cursed with an insatiable hunger which leads to death of himself
       and others.
     - Charles (Thanatos) is placing the guns on a tray as the couple beg to know what's going on
       and ask to be set free.
     - Charles explains the situation to the couple and why he's doing what he does
     - He gives Kris the chance to be a "gentleman or a coward" as he lets him decide who's going to
       get shot first
     - after a lot of discussion and doubt, Kris agrees to get shot first only to find the gun Alice chose
       for him was a blank
     - Now Kris has a 50% chance to kill his own girlfriend.

1 comment:

  1. Victor this is a great developed idea that you've clearly thought carefully about. I think it would be difficult to pull off as a short film though - you would need really good actors and props (guns) /location might be tricky. But overall this is great work, well done.

    ReplyDelete

D2: Comparing my product to the client brief

The client brief Have I produced an advertising campaign?      The aim was to create a cross-media advertising campaign which is var...