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Cooking up an idea...

S

Serjus

I've been thinking alot about making a nice little flick and was considering a story-line. I was wondering what you thought of it. At this point I don't even have character names yet. I was listening to this song by an unsigned band and I just visualized this awesome action sequence in my mind. Then I started thinking over how I would actually be able to shoot it, then what caused the scene to take place. Before I knew it I had a little story cooked up.

Basically, the it's a story of a drug lord (big shot, think Tony Montana) deciding to retire. He gives a hefty bonus to his distributors and offers to give the business to his righthand man. His partner decides it would be a good opportunity to start over with a clean slate and go back to school as he had wanted to before he got into the drug business. The problem in all this is the drug lord's heroine supplier is highly upset when he hears rumors that the drug lord is retiring (as he was one of the supplier's biggest clients). So the supplier decides at the last 'business deal' to kill the pickup (who happens to be the righthand man) and take the money and the heroine as a final "FU" to the retiring drug dealer. So the righthand man catches wind of the supplier's plan, and when he does the pickup, he kills them all first in a big action scene and takes the dope and the cash. They retire and live happily evar after (yay).

Of course, there will be some subplots and such, but that is the base of the plot.Has a similar tone to Scarface, but a happier ending. What do you think of the idea? Realistic or too cheesy? Original, used up, or somewhere in between?
 
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Hmm.

I don't have an opinion but I do have a question and an observation. I think this is relevant to this kind of project.

Do you know anything about drug dealing, either first hand or from research, or is this film going to draw all its contextual information from films you've seen?

I ask this because the real danger with this kind of project is creating a cliched film, with characters who are photocopies of people from other films in this genre. The thing that makes the next "drug lord" film interesting is presenting a new perspective on an old storyline. City of God did that very sucesfully, because no one was going to say, hey that's just a sad rip off of Scarface or even The Godfather.

The other obeservation I make from you synopsis is that you've got a film where nothing much happens until the final action sequence; it's almost as if you've got the first ten minutes of a film which then stops without telling the rest of the story. This is because you've no conflict in your story until the end of the film.

Other than that I don't have an opinion, but I do think that research is the key to making these projects work, and also that structure sort of dictatates that their is conflict earlier in the story that is then resolved by the final violence.
 
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Personnaly I'd say great short film, but as Clive says not enough of a hook to make a feature. Also the last big score/job/hiest before retirement is very old hat and would need a seriously good spin on it to make it original.
 
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Yeah, I agree with you clive. Other than a good friend of mine getting into "the business" after high school, I don't have any personal experience in that line of work. I will be sure to do some reading on real drug drug dealers.
As for the last big job being at the end, I was actually thinking of doing one of those "show the high action scene first, then a -One Week Earlier- screen and start the story from there". Present it the same way it appeard in my mind, a big action sequence that left one asking "WTF just happened" generating intrigue into the rest of the story. I know that most of the ends of drug dealing movies/books ends with the dealer either getting caught, killed, or losing all his money. I'd like to see one where he gets out clean, maybe even a comedic element to touch on when you see a guy who has spent his whole life selling drugs and killing rivals manage to get away with it all and end up on the lake fishing everyday like he always wanted to.
I dunno. I might just write up a bit of the screenplay for the action scene, post it here, and see what you guys think of my style; if I even have the skill to pull off a story like this well.
 
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I've been working a bit on it. Reading up a bit on the subject. I've decided, the action sequence I had in mind is good; the story, however, worn out.
On to good news, I've got in touch with a few old friends who are enthusiastic about making a (very)low-budget movie (all three us have directed short student films). I'm glad because I'll have a hand in writing the screenplay, and already developing a (very)small crew. :D
 
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