The Community Brainstorming Thread

Ok, I think that poll/thread probably is the easiest way to go for the time being. At a later date if we wish to have a more organised method of communicating treatments/ideas we can start to use the blog.

But for the sake of the poll I reckon we should come up with loglines for the few ideas that we have, so that people get a rough idea of what they're voting for.

Sort of like Dragon's Den, but with film ideas and instead of a complex pitch, just a couple of sentences.

The ideas the I see currently are:

Zombies
Organ Lottery
'The Cure'

Am I missing some obvious ones?
 
I have a quick question and though it might seem off topic it is just a qualifier to an idea I have. So the question is for you guys in the UK: Has the government raised the retirement age or are they hinting at doing so?? Have they cut benefits for the elderly?
 
Murdock said:
Hey, no voting twice!! This isn't Gangs of New York! :) I didn't think about the poll. That would be a nice option to have. I'm fine either way.
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the second vote was strictly to prove how devoted i am to this project... or was it just that my computer screwed up? either way i voted... lol
 
Murdock said:
I have a quick question and though it might seem off topic it is just a qualifier to an idea I have. So the question is for you guys in the UK: Has the government raised the retirement age or are they hinting at doing so?? Have they cut benefits for the elderly?
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Murdock, the current retirement age is 60 for women and 65 for men. At this age, employers are legally allowed to terminate employment, and the employee will then recieve thier state pension. This is in the midst of being scrapped so that employees can work to whatever age they like and an employer cannot terminate without good reason. Of course, employees can still retire at this age if they so choose. But... By 2020, the government will have raised the age that a person can recieve state pension to 68 for both men and women. Make sense? Hope so. I struggle with this myself. Apparently, us Brits are all going to live to 120 anyway, so we'll only be working for 50% of our lives! :lol:

As far as benefit cuts, I think the elderly have been protected.
 
Do I sense another idea in the forming, Mr.Murdock?

If so, and I hope it is so, then we/you should look to condense it into a rough logline. I think that these loglines will be crucial in running a productive vote.

I've drafted a logline for the Organ Lottery one:

'In a world that is starved of usable organs, [X Number] people across the world wait with baited breath to see whether they have been selected as one of the lucky few to receive a transplant. The build up and fall out of this momentous wait will change all their lives, for better or worse.'

And one for 'The Cure':

'The world has fallen victim to a terrible plague and, with time running out, only 1000 people worldwide can be vaccinated in time. Across the world [X Number] people wait to find out whether luck is on their side, or whether they must accept their fate.'

And a go at the uterine plague theme:

'A uterine plague has swept the globe rending all women unable to conceive. Twenty years on and civilisation is on the point of collapse with the population plummeting and disease and disorder rife across the globe. Through this setting tales of desperation and hope emerge.'

I'm not a very competent logline writer, so please feel free to correct and replace the ones that I've written. I've deliberately kept them loose, because that's one of the points of this project: giving people creative freedom.
 
Sorry I was at work. I'll give the logline a go. But I'll probably have to explain.

LOGLINE: Abandoned by the country they love, and without family to help them, five elderly strangers seek the support they need and the revenge they crave.
 
Ok, I think I get where you're coming from Murdock- like a geriatric revenge thriller? Or are we talking more low key?

Anyone want to write a logline for the Zombie idea? I'm not sure who came up with it but I'm not really sure how one would go about writing it, so it would be great if someone could write a brief summary of how we might go about doing that one...
 
Finding unity in the voice of a far off radio broadcast small bands of survivors struggle against a plague and its victims to reach a rumored refuge.

EDIT: This is mostly POST apocalypse.. no huge crowds of murderous creatures.. rather small roving bands. etc..


The connector is the Radio Broadcast personality.. slowly going MAD. Semi prophet, semi crazy theorist.. etc..
The plague (avoiding zombies here) infects people and makes them crazy.. but not undead.. some might even be mostly normal. cept they want to KILL YOU.. why.. dont ask..
The survivors are the remote units
In the end, "refuge" is where you make it, where the remote units find it is up to them.. maybe in the arms of love, or in a remote farm, or in the bottom of bottle of Jack.
 
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wheatgrinder said:
Finding unity in the voice of a far off radio broadcast small bands of survivors struggle against a plague and its victims to reach a rumored refuge.

EDIT: This is mostly POST apocalypse.. no huge crowds of murderous creatures.. rather small roving bands. etc..


The connector is the Radio Broadcast personality.. slowly going MAD. Semi prophet, semi crazy theorist.. etc..
The plague (avoiding zombies here) infects people and makes them crazy.. but not undead.. some might even be mostly normal. cept they want to KILL YOU.. why.. dont ask..
The survivors are the remote units
In the end, "refuge" is where you make it, where the remote units find it is up to them.. maybe in the arms of love, or in a remote farm, or in the bottom of bottle of Jack.
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Yep, that sounds pretty darn good :)

I was thinking that one of the things we should do (for the sake of continuity) before we start writing any of the segments is decide on some unique global features that are uniform in all the different scripts. For example we might decide that the President of the United States is a guy called Mark Sanchez (coming off the back of a successful football career) and then whenever a thread might refer to the POTUS, they call him 'Mark Sanchez' or 'Sanchez' or whatever.

This may seem like a trivial detail, but I think it's important. I think each remote unit's film should work on two levels: as a standalone short film and as part of the overall film. In order to give the impression that all the different shorts are singing from the same hymn sheet, rather than simply using the same general theme, we should seek to include little details like this in the different stories. That way someone who is watching the final product will know that despite the fact that the threads aren't communicating with each other, they're taking place in the same version of reality, under the same set of rules.

So maybe we could come up with ten indisputable facts and say that writers need to make reference to at least two (of their own chosing) during the writing process. That way we won't be overloaded by them, but there'll be a sense of consistency.

Just a thought.
 
I love that idea .. the more details we have in common, the more unified the remote stories will seem. And picking details like this, that are story agnostic, allow the remote units all the freedom they could want.

How about applying this idea to a color pallet?

Or take a page from startrek and have the character that will die first be wearing a "red shirt" or something like that..

EDIT: Another big unifier will be that everyone is listening to the same radio broadcast. As remote units are working, one unit will be doing the radio stuff. Which of course isn't just audio, but his story too.. Remote units should not record any REAL radio.. If we do this one, I might want that job by the way, it really speaks to me.. for some reason..
 
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NickClapper said:
Yep, that sounds pretty darn good :)

I was thinking that one of the things we should do (for the sake of continuity) before we start writing any of the segments is decide on some unique global features that are uniform in all the different scripts. For example we might decide that the President of the United States is a guy called Mark Sanchez (coming off the back of a successful football career) and then whenever a thread might refer to the POTUS, they call him 'Mark Sanchez' or 'Sanchez' or whatever.

This may seem like a trivial detail, but I think it's important. I think each remote unit's film should work on two levels: as a standalone short film and as part of the overall film. In order to give the impression that all the different shorts are singing from the same hymn sheet, rather than simply using the same general theme, we should seek to include little details like this in the different stories. That way someone who is watching the final product will know that despite the fact that the threads aren't communicating with each other, they're taking place in the same version of reality, under the same set of rules.

So maybe we could come up with ten indisputable facts and say that writers need to make reference to at least two (of their own chosing) during the writing process. That way we won't be overloaded by them, but there'll be a sense of consistency.

Just a thought.
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now that's organization. I'm no live action filmmaker, so I can't really help, but I really love the concept and how you guys seem to be planning it. can't wait to see how this unfolds.
 
wheatgrinder said:
I love that idea .. the more details we have in common, the more unified the remote stories will seem. And picking details like this, that are story agnostic, allow the remote units all the freedom they could want.

How about applying this idea to a color pallet?

Or take a page from startrek and have the character that will die first be wearing a "red shirt" or something like that..
Click to expand...

Colour pallete is potentially doable but I think it might just be another added technical difficulty for the remote units, so unless everyone wanted to define that, then it would be tricky to implement.

Not sure what you mean about the t-shirts. You mean the first to die in each film has to wear a red t-shirt? If so, why? And how does it link to Star Trek? :huh:

But I agree that little pieces of extraneous detail could go a long way to tying these threads together whilst maintaining their creative independence.
 
NickClapper said:
Colour pallete is potentially doable but I think it might just be another added technical difficulty for the remote units, so unless everyone wanted to define that, then it would be tricky to implement.

Not sure what you mean about the t-shirts. You mean the first to die in each film has to wear a red t-shirt? If so, why? And how does it link to Star Trek? :huh:

But I agree that little pieces of extraneous detail could go a long way to tying these threads together whilst maintaining their creative independence.
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Ah man.. Dreddy set the man straight will ya!

startrekexpendability.png
 
I was thinking more low key to begin with then at the end they go on a rampage. Its important to mention that each story would be independent from the other, save for some common piece of news/information that affects them all.
 
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