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get me started..

W

wheatgrinder

Hi all,
I have need to make a short (less than 5 mins) I need to test my gear and skills to see if Im ready "enough" for the next stage of my magnus opus (ok, my little 30 min movie)

Looking for story\script idea starters.. something to fit the following limitations..

constraints for short:

  • Cast Options: 1 adult female, 2 teenage girls, 1 preteen girl, 1 boy, 1 little girl, 1 small smart dog, 1 smaller (but dang cute) dumb dog, chickens, ducks, 2 horses and one mini pony (use 1, all or none)
  • Crew: Me
  • Locations: EXT: woods, farm pasture, creek side, INT: Farm House, unfinished basement (pick one)
  • Other: No horror, No sex, No bad language..

ideas, anyone? :)
 
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A teenage girl wakes up one morning with her soul transposed into the body of a chicken. Can she alert her father to her predicament before the ducks peck her to death?

*​

Actually, I can see some sort of chiller coming out of this. Are you OK with that if it was psychological and had no violence?

I like the way you've broken down what you've got. I think you could get around the fact that the girls have little acting experience by having them play silent roles.

Do you have any vague ideas floating round that we could expand on? I don't want to go in completely the wrong direction.

*​

Random idea: The barn could be a backwoods research facility where animals and people are tagged and chipped. Voiceover from the director of the 'Insititute'. Check out the work of Jose Delgado, for example.
 
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Maybe it's because I watched "The Prisoner" lately lol:


Girl wakes up in a bed that looks like hers, but different. Goes downstairs to see a family that is almost hers, but different. She has to try and figure out where she is and how to get back "home"-maybe everyone (whoever you use, even could be any combination of cast) she sees there is also in the same predicatment-none of them are "home", and are trying to figure out how to get back to their own place.


For a few minute short, you might only want 2-3 people-might end up being mostly dialogue, but some interesting discussion could be had.
 
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This might be too chiller for you... I just wrote it as an exercise. No worries if it's not your thing.

Soundtrack: Something from Christian Vogel or Flying Saucer Attack. Searching for something suitible now.

Visuals: Shoot it Black and White. Start with faded in shots of the surrounding area. Not too many wide shots, keep it tight and disorienting.

VOICEOVER (Peter Cushing-like Uber-English Baddie voice):

Of course we guarantee the utmost discretion. No records. You will be surprised who has passed through. Out of the way to say the least.

You will note that animals and people are very similar at their core. We are now able to track and stun a bird, chicken, dog, adult of child human remotely within 20 miles of the facility. The same waves that can stun, relax or even put to sleep an animal subject can, with a little tweaking, be used on humans.

Soon we will be able to calm entire crowds...
Click to expand...
 
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I was getting to that....

The voiceover would set the atmosphere.

A lone outlaw plans to infiltrate the backwoods research institute that holds his daughters hostage. Can he do it before they are chipped?
 
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You could have a look at some Philip K Dick plot lines and see if you can use something... The guy is beyond genius. I'm looking at his plot summaries now. I'll pick ones that could be used. I won't say exactly how they could be adapted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick#Selected_works

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965)
The novel takes place in the twenty-first century, when, under United Nations authority, mankind has colonized the solar system's every habitable planet and moon. Life is physically daunting and psychologically monotonous for most colonists, so the UN must draft people to go to the colonies.

*​

Ubik (1969) uses extensive networks of psychics and a suspended state after death in creating a state of eroding reality. A group of psychics is sent to investigate a group of rival psychics, but several of them are apparently killed by a saboteur's bomb. Much of the novel flicks between a number of equally plausible realities; the "real" reality, a state of half-life and psychically manipulated realities.

*​

Jack Bohlen is a repairman who emigrated to Mars to flee from his bouts of schizophrenia. He lives with a wife and a young son. His father Leo visits Mars to stake a claim to the seemingly worthless Franklin D. Roosevelt mountain range after receiving an insider tip that the United Nations plans to build a huge apartment complex there. The complex will be called "AM-WEB", a contraction of the German phrase "Alle Menschen werden Brüder" (All men become brothers) from Schiller's An die Freude (Ode to Joy).
Click to expand...


It also strikes me that your location is very fairytale-esque so you might want to plunder some obscure Brothers Grimm stories and drag them into the 21st century.
 
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executive decision reached. :)

I'm going with a variation on the "A lone outlaw plans to infiltrate the backwoods research institute that holds his daughters hostage. Can he do it before they are chipped?"

exactly WHAT that variation looks like is to be figured out..
 
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A family of above average children must use their unique talents to extract mom from the remote Department Of Human Services reeducation laboratory before its too late!

Outside of farm house:
Kim steps off the porch, dressed in running clothes, the kids are squabbling in the house. She puts on her head phones and jogs out the drive way.

Remote Highway:
Kim is jogging when a van suddenly pulls up besides her, the side door crashes open and hands pull her into the van. The door is slammed shut and the van speeds away..
 
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