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Helping me wrap up my plot!!

C

cdonnelly

Hey folks,

Erm i'm a bot of a newbie film maker but I've got to produce part of a short film of 5 minutes in length.
I have 1 camera (just a digitl one with movie capavilities-casio exilm), a tripod and a few willing friends.
I have just got a plot but I don't know how to explain the plot so it all fits together nicely if u get what I mean. If anyone can think of a good way please post it or alternatively any good short film ideas I could use with my limited resources.

Heres my plot so far:
It will start with a guy dead - a bit like pans labyrinth and work back to 6 weeks before. The date the guy has died will be made clear so the audince is aware the guys death is coming!

6weeks before:
A man gets up and goes for a run at which point he and passerby bump into one another. The passerby drops lots of stuff and the character stops to help pck up some of this. Later on my character goes back the way he ran previously and finds some of his stuff has been duplicated. Evne the clothes the passerby was wearing were copies of his. Basically, lots of my main characters stuff has been copied and the other guy sort of wants his life.
After a couple of weeks (as the main guy has no idea his death date is coming) the main man returns home and is confronted by the other guy. At this point the copyer apprhehends the goody. He threatens to kill him and I hope to end with just a single ringing gunshot and a black screen.

----------------------
Its really help with the end bit - i dont know why some1 would want to copy all the other guys stuff?? Any suggestions on this or any other short story ideas I could do???

Oh and I hope to use movimaker to edit this film btw.

Grateful for any posts and help

Jason
 
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identical twins separated at birth

Pod people want to take over the world one Innocent jogger at a time..

Alternate universe is not as nice as this one, so guy from other universe want to take over his doppelgangers life in our universe..

Clones are people too! This one wants to take over the originals life!

(or variation.. am Im a clone, or are you a clone.. uh oh.. )


Time travel paradox, the death was really and accident caused by the guy trying to prevent his "future" death ..
 
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wheatgrinder said:
identical twins separated at birth

Pod people want to take over the world one Innocent jogger at a time..

Alternate universe is not as nice as this one, so guy from other universe want to take over his doppelgangers life in our universe..

Clones are people too! This one wants to take over the originals life!

(or variation.. am Im a clone, or are you a clone.. uh oh.. )


Time travel paradox, the death was really and accident caused by the guy trying to prevent his "future" death ..
Click to expand...

That time travel paradox idea popped into my head, too, and it's about the best I can come up with. There's a reason why I don't do a lot of genre stuff in spite of how much I love it.
 
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It’s likely way too ambitious, but maybe something called Knock-Off where in order to save himself, A GUY has to kill himself (Illegal suicide) via HIS CLONE, before his Clone makes his life actually better and then kills him (No laws for clones committing murder).

The Clone could be ruining the Guy’s reputation (walking the streets naked and borrowing money from loan sharks and shit), but he also has a better social life and cooler friends than The Guy, and the Clone is Spock-like and hyper logical and aggravating -he knows all the answers to trivia and is good with women and can dance and like maybe at times the Guy will say things like “You know that old saying, what comes around goes around.” And the Clone will be like “No, I never heard that actually, it’s illogical.”, then when The Guy wants to go off on The Clone, The Clone’s better smaller, newer CELL PHONE RINGS and the Clone is all ‘Talk to the hand bitch’ to the Guy while taking the call like “Lotion applier for the Women’s Swedish Vollyball team? Yeah I can do that… (Looks at the Guy with distain) Oh yeah, of course I’ll come alone, see you in a few.”

Then ultimately (and thematically) the Guy is at odds with himself and it’s Go-Time,
but the Guy knows better than to ever second guess himself and the Clone’s fatal flaw is that he doesn’t know that, or other things about himself.

So finally, driven insane and into a murderous rage the Guy has his Clone pinned down and is standing over it with like a sledge hammer raised, and he says:


THE GUY
Sometimes
(beat)
I crack myself up!

SMASH!!!

He busts the Clone in the face and THE POLICE roll up and drag the Guy away ranting and raving like a nut case about some evil twin Clone that has been created and sent to ruin his life.

Then maybe some kind of ending where in the nuthouse there is A DOCTOR that is behind it all, and he or everyone looks just like the Guy, or the Guy sees the TV or newspaper and “Area man saves orphan’s from fire AND wins jackpot sweepstakes in the same day!” and the picture looks just like the guy.


-Thanks-
 
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Thanks Wheat.

What I am trying to communicate consideration of (beneath the surface of the throw away idea here) is that, sometimes when backed to the wall for want of a direction, you can bail out and roll the dice on finding/creating a high concept title (Not that mine really is, but it's the same thought process) in the realm of what you are working with.

It's painfully a no brainer, but the concept condensed into a workable form (title) can sometimes be like a wedge that splits the log of story and/or direction open by way of asking yourself to encapsulate what it is you are trying to present to others (The audience).

It doesn't work everytime, and the results are only as good as whatever you come up with, but when stuck (and since you'll need a title anyways) it can sometimes hook you up.

-Thanks-
 
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Maybe I was a bit vague at first hopefully this may give you a better idea of what sort of direction I want the ending to take! Thanks though for all the advice and ideas so far!

I need it to be quite basic but clever since I have virtually no money to work with and Movie Maker isnt the best so something clever but unique would make for a good ending. Obviously the jogger needs to die so it ties in with the start but its why he should get killed that I need o answer.
If anyone can think of why he should die I would be ETERNALLY grateful! lol

Or alternatively if any of you can think of a way to tweak one of the earlier scenes or plot so that it could end diffrewently.
I'm likin all of the ideas so far (including the clever sci fi ones!) but they are not something I can do or incorporate and make them look plausible in a low budget cheap film. Any new help foks???! Oh and is there any good editing software for free that I might be able to download?? NEeds to be simple to use but use good effects.

thanks

Jase
 
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