story Any suggestions on how I can finish this storyline

[ajedproduction]

I wont post my whole storyline but heres whats its about

It's about a guy who's memory of his ex-girlfriend has faded and he has completely lost his memory of her face. She dissapeared off the face of the earth[on purpose] and erased all his records of her(pictures, drawings etc) He is still really in love with her, Throughout the fil he reminises of the past and goes about trying to bring back his memory of her.

The ending I've got so far is him considering suicide, and when he is about to commit the act he stumbles upon an old sketch of her face(earlyer in the film we see him drawing her and we show that all his drawings have been torn out by her when she dissapears). It would have an open ending, the final shot will be a blurry shot of the girls face, it slowly gets clearer and clearer, but before it becomes really clear the film ends. I want the viewer to be trying to find out whether he actually remembered her or not.

Or maybe I could end it with him remembering her, then have the blurry shot of her face which then cuts right before it becomes really visible, the character remembers her face,I want to keep the girls face a secret from the viewer(you never see it throughout the whole film)

Any suggestions for me?? Feel free to completely change the ending to a different scene or just suggest how I should end my current ending, thanks.

 

[Utopia]

Have him get on Google and then see her again via Google Street Cam, and then he remembers and is happy ever after.

j/k

I think your first instinct is fine! I suggest finishing it the way you have it, then re-read it and if anything else comes to mind jot it down. Don't let us finish it for you! It's your work!!!

Plus, your ending sounds kind of like the ending to Inception. I dig it.

 

[harpsichoid]

I don't think you should show the face. The most important part of the end of the film is his reaction and his closure, I don't think that you should obscure that by bringing in new things. If the whole of the rest of the film is about his love, his memories, and his torture, then I don't think it's right to give focus to the girl, an absent character.

Unless of course, you're going to have a twist. Like the picture is of a duck, or a celebrity chef or something.

 

[FantasySciFi]

The ending I've got so far is him considering suicide, and when he is about to commit the act he stumbles upon an old sketch of her face(earlyer in the film we see him drawing her and we show that all his drawings have been torn out by her when she dissapears).

Jeez, for an ex-girlfriend? It's clear she doesn't want to be found. I understand your reluctances to share more, but why doesn't he just move on? Losing one's fiance or wife inexplicably, I can understand. But vandalizing his possessions? So from your short description, I'm having a hard time buying into the plot. A story can ask us to suspend belief to a degree but you need to provide a reason. They had no social life? No friends? No family? What you are asking me to do is think that she was imaginary to start with. It would really disappoint me to waste money and time to learn that.

It would have an open ending, the final shot will be a blurry shot of the girls face, it slowly gets clearer and clearer, but before it becomes really clear the film ends. I want the viewer to be trying to find out whether he actually remembered her or not. Or ... I want to keep the girls face a secret from the viewer(you never see it throughout the whole film)

What's the purpose of the remembering? Seriously, he sees her and stops his suicide attempt. Now what? He's already exhausted, I'm assuming, every means to find her. How is he better off for seeing it at the end? I can see this as a suspense/mystery, science fiction, espionage, etc. But that ending would really disappoint me. I would probably think, "I watched all this crying and searching to have him find the picture? Now what?" I'm sorry to sound harsh but the ending needs to be emotionally satisfying to the audience. The emotional (subjective) storyline needs to be complete. The plotlines and clever twists (objective storyline) can be left unresolved.

Any suggestions for me?? Feel free to completely change the ending to a different scene or just suggest how I should end my current ending, thanks.

For the purpose of illustration (this is probably way off base to your concept):
I can understand her being a witness in a brutal criminal trial. She is in a witness protection program and has started a new life. She is located by the mob. So suddenly she's whisked away for witness protection with a new identity right after her boyfriend proposes to her. This would drive him to want to find her. He might come back and find his stuff rummaged through by operatives. I might actually have her plant the picture with something smarmy written on it somewhere that it might be found (of course, you'd only see her hand). Then I would have him start to get his life back together. Perhaps have him captured by the bad guys dropping him back into the mystery. A new person swings in and rescues him. He is moving on with his life a second time when he happens to watch television and sees her face in the crowd. He manages to find out it's a news item in another city. He hastily books the flight. Ends with him looking out the window of the plane.

I understand your concept, but from my perspective, she is also a character in your story so she needs to be made real and 3D for the audience. Hiding characters is very difficult and potentially flawed. As I mentioned above, too much unexplained absence of humanity--friends, family, records, etc.--makes the character very hollow and imaginary. The audience ceases to care about them. To combat that, some things must be introduced to keep them real.

You might being doing that through flashbacks. Another approach may be to have agents ('good' or bad) messing with his memory. The guy is in an operating room being heavily drugged. We see only blurred, distorted events with her. Something needs to be there that makes the audience believe why he wants to pursue her. (She giggles, "Well, aren't you going to ask?" "Ask what?" "Whether we paint the room pink or blue.") The rest of the story needs to show us the trials he goes through. The ending I suggested above provides emotional closure "there's hope" even though the actual resolution isn't included (does he find her?).

Again, you may be addressing these points. (1) Be plausible. Would a normal, sane person do this? (2) Be human. What would a normal person feel and do in real life? (3) ALWAYS resolve the emotional component of your story. How is this character different or grown as a result? Emotional resolution doesn't need to be positive (though it attracts more viewers).

 

[wheatgrinder]

he cant recall her? 28 years later and I can my first loves face PERFECTLY... so its NOT really about his being in love with her, the SUBTEXT its about something else. What is that REALLY about? Answer that and you have your ending.

One technical question: you have suggested an almost impossible image to film, how do you SHOW someone NOT remembering something? I think it can be done, but how?


Riffing on your idea, this is not fore your story, but inspiration for another..
when he looks at a picture of her it goes all blurry..or it looks rubbed out, or torn etc..
all along we think he CANT remember her, but REALLY hes SUBCONSCIOUSLY blocked from seeing her, and when hes NOT looking we see his hands TEAR out her picture, or erase the computer file etc..

 

[ajedproduction]

One thing I forgot to mention is that it has to be a 3 minute film. So all this complicated scenarios with agents and stuff is completely out of the question, and really not what I'm going for anyway.

The one thing I will say about this film is that it is very very ambiguous. It's not a straightforward narrative film, there is no dialogue in the film, the film is 100% narration. I want the viewer to be questioning whether the girl ever existed and why the guy cant remember her. Sorry I should've explained it in more detail in the first post. Admitedly there is still a lot of developing to be done.

It's going to be in the same kind of genre as this short film by "wong fu productions" on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSrXMFcQ4dY

I know my storyline is very implausible, but look at the short film I posted above, it's about objects that describe their feelings for a girl. Obviously very implausible but the film is still very beautiful. I'm not interested in making something that is really realistic, I want there to be an element of fantasy to it...For example, if you've seen the film Chungking Express by Wong Kar Wai, Tony Leung's character talks to a used up bar of soap in his house. When Fay Wong's character replaces the soap with a new one, he doesn't think "someone replaced my soap" instead he talks to the soap saying how it's let it self go and become fat...I see what you mean though about ti being implausible and I will keep that in mind as I work on this storyline.

I still have to develop the storyline a bit and I take everything you guys say on board to help me develop it further. thanks.