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Script Idea...High Concept?

W

WednesdayPosterBoy

Well after reading these high-concept posts on the board, I realized I've had this idea sitting for quite some time and was wondering what any of you thought of it....(remember, this is real scratch idea. Apologies if it doesnt make sense)


ok it's about a middle aged man that is sent on vacation from his family (wife and 12 year old daughter) for his birthday to a caribbean island. He is very very nervous about the flight, and is really panicing before and during it, when hes on the flight he gets to talking to other people on the plane and they are talking about how just before they got on they have done all these terrible things (murder, other sins, etc.), or people they know really hate him...near the end of the movie the plane is crashing into the water, and while it's going down. The husband/father notices: everybody on the plane was sent on this plane to die for their actions. In the early part of the movie you see the family in the back of scenes getting rid of his clothes, his posessions, etc. because they know they are sending them to his death

+ everyone in the plane talks about how they won the ticket, or somebody bought it for them

+ the man has been cheating with his daughter's best friend but THOUGHT his daughter or wife didn't know (that's the whole reason they buy a death plane ticket for him)

and so when the plane is going down, he starts to get all these flashbacks all the way back to when his wife actually found out about him cheating and realized thats why hes been sent to die

+ the airline is a new one, and during the instructions before takeoff there are multiple VERY VERY subtle puns that they are all about to die


Now to me, this could be written very comedic (of course in a dark way) but also very frighetning, and although there are no direct scares in the movie, it could definetly be seen as a horror.


Definetly am waiting to hear comments from all lengths of the spectrum, again sorry for the scrambled thoughts.
 
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....sounds like the twilight zone...

I am still trying to make sure I understand what high concept is as well, but what I understand it to be is this: Be able to explain it in two sentences. Once you can do that, then you can add all the details when you really get the chance to explain your concept....

...man looks back over his misdeeds in life as he realizes that tonight is his time to pay for his sins...

...then when you get the opportunity, you explain the rest of the story....

--spinner
 
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Yeah I picked up on the twilight zone myself, I still don't know if thats a bad thing or not though.

If we are going along with the two sentence rule then...

"A mom and daughter agree to buy the husband a plane ticket on a new airline that purposely kills all of the riders in attendance, after finding out his perverted ways."
 
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Sorry, a bit drunk, so will keep this short. They guy needs to realize what's happening (ie... he's on a doomed flight that his wife and daughter sent him on) just before the plane crashes for this to work. I think that's the impression I got from your synopsis. But, I agree, this seems more like a 30 min, hours thing that a feature length film.
 
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...I think you ought to go back to the HIGH CONCEPT vs. yawn thread and post your questions there. Filmjumper is good at this stuff and can explain it better than I can....

git on over there!

--spinner
 
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High Concept...

WednesdayPosterBoy said:
Well after reading these high-concept posts on the board, I realized I've had this idea sitting for quite some time and was wondering what any of you thought of it....(remember, this is real scratch idea. Apologies if it doesnt make sense)


ok it's about a middle aged man that is sent on vacation from his family (wife and 12 year old daughter) for his birthday to a caribbean island. He is very very nervous about the flight, and is really panicing before and during it, when hes on the flight he gets to talking to other people on the plane and they are talking about how just before they got on they have done all these terrible things (murder, other sins, etc.), or people they know really hate him...near the end of the movie the plane is crashing into the water, and while it's going down. The husband/father notices: everybody on the plane was sent on this plane to die for their actions. In the early part of the movie you see the family in the back of scenes getting rid of his clothes, his posessions, etc. because they know they are sending them to his death

+ everyone in the plane talks about how they won the ticket, or somebody bought it for them

+ the man has been cheating with his daughter's best friend but THOUGHT his daughter or wife didn't know (that's the whole reason they buy a death plane ticket for him)

and so when the plane is going down, he starts to get all these flashbacks all the way back to when his wife actually found out about him cheating and realized thats why hes been sent to die

+ the airline is a new one, and during the instructions before takeoff there are multiple VERY VERY subtle puns that they are all about to die


Now to me, this could be written very comedic (of course in a dark way) but also very frighetning, and although there are no direct scares in the movie, it could definetly be seen as a horror.


Definetly am waiting to hear comments from all lengths of the spectrum, again sorry for the scrambled thoughts.
Click to expand...

I'd say your idea is definitely HIGH CONCEPT which is a great start...

A high concept idea doesn't have to be contained or explained in two sentences... In fact, it's better if you can do it with one sentence... There's quite a few formulas that allow you to do that...

The most important part of an idea being HIGH CONCEPT is that the idea, when expressed in say... 60 words or less, needs absolutely NO MORE EXPLANATION. In other words, the person you're telling the idea to can just about fill in the blanks.

Now does that mean you now go off and write a predictable, formulaic story?

Nope.

All you did was come up with a high concept idea... One that 95% of the people you tell it to can figure the rest of the idea out almost instantly.

filmy
 
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It reminds me of that Twilight Zone epesode where the guy sees the goblin thing on the plane wing and no one believes him until they all die. Great idea, good luck with it. I miss the Twilight Zone:(....
 
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Twilight Zone epesode where the guy sees the goblin thing on the plane wing and no one believes him
Click to expand...

"Nightmare at 20, 000 Feet", with William Shatner.

I'm actually watching that right now... coincidence?
smiley_ghost.gif
 
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Oh... I am serious indeed, good Lux. I was watching it, when I checked your post.

There is no "definitive" box set that I am aware of (though I would kill to get it, if available. However, all episodes have been released on DVD in various ways.

The closest to a box set that I have seen is from Image Entertainment, who put out extremely cheap collections. (I picked up Collection #1 a month ago, at a Target store. 9 DVDs with 4 episodes on each disc, as well as more trivia than you can shake a stick at) It was $13.

The episodes are not in order, but it does cover the gamut of the series.

Twilight Zone is the second-greatest TV series ever. :cool:

Btw... noone dies in that Shatner episode, as you thought. Also, that episode was one of the three remakes in the Twilight Zone Movie that came out in the 80's.

...anyways... enough of de-rail by me :)
 
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