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What makes a Thirrler?

W

wheatgrinder

Iv become enamored with the idea of making a short thriller. Not a slash-em up, but the chase kind.

So what are some key plot points that thrillers normally have?

The story will focus on a couple being hunted by bad guys after the couple witnesses the "murder" of their friend.

O’Black Mountain Road

Treatment Story Idea

Jake, Jim and Linda are off for an all day hike to a little accessed high mountain lake. Jake and Jim are brothers and Linda is Jim's girlfriend. They park the truck at the locked gate and set out on foot, Jim is moody. As they walk Jim accuses Jake of having a thing for Linda, they tussle as brother often do, they break it up, and the three argue some more, eventually, Jim gets mad and stomps off down the road. Jake and Linda bicker as they walk, trailing behind Jim by about 50 yards. Jim rounds a corner, Linda runs to catch up. Just as Linda rounds the bend out of sight of Jake who is still dragging his feet, a gun shot cracks the quite mountain air!

Jake runs forward and Linda is running back towards him, eyes wide in terror, she grabs his arm and without speaking the two run into the woods, duck behind a stump. Jake tries to ask her what’s going on but she shushes him.. Jim hears the car cruising down the gravel, its stops near where they are hiding and black uniformed, professional looking soldier types, climb out of the vehicle and using hand signals only, start an organized search.

Linda tries to bolt; Jake grabs her arm, holding her down. The men get closer; one stands within feet of the stump, suddenly the men turn and jog back to the car, they climb in and drive away having never said a word.


Linda, shaking with fear bursts out crying unable to tell Jake what she saw. Jake pulls her to her feet and the two cautiously walk towards the corner where it all happened. As they round the corner Jake looks over his shoulder in time to see one of the soldiers step out on to the road near the spot where they were hiding and speak into a radio. Jake grabs Linda’s hand and they run! Shielded by the corner Jake hurriedly stops to survey the crime screen, there is no body! They see Jims blood soaked back pack on the ground near the side of the road; they hear the roaring of the car engine and panic! Hand in hand the run towards the woods, Jake stops, runs back and grabs the blood soaked back pack, and they run deeper into the woods. As they run, they decide that Jims body must be in the car with the gunmen!

The car skids to a halt, the men get out of the car. Expecting to find Jims body where they left it, the leader presumes the gunmen failed and executes him on the spot.

Jim huddles in culvert beneath the road near where the gunmen stand.


... (cont)...

Eventually Jake and Linda admit their love, discover the plot of the bad guys, reunite with Jim and save the day.



20 mins long.

Does this sound thrilling? What are the obligatory elements?


I got this inspiration while jogging a 4 mile loop on some gated and locked logging roads near my home.


(edit: take my idea, go ahead, Im not worried about it. Ideas are cheap, execution is everything!)
(edit: I just updated with a bit more treatment)
 
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Those who run, fall. Better to skip.:)

Check out that, Black Cadillac. Or Butch Casidy and the Sundance Kid. There's a good chase scene where they are being tracked.
 
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Obligatory elements in the sense that I set up a confrontations that must occur, I hate loose ends. For example, Jake and Jim (if he lives) have to come to terms, with the "girl" situation. Could be a cool, multi threaded confrontation at the climax.

Also, revealing to the viewer that that Jim is alive, should I do that? Would it be more thrilling if Jim jumps out at the end and does some hero stuff?

The story is still open..
 
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wheatgrinder said:
no time to study, I want to make a movie! :)
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Lol. Well, in that case, what im reading seems fine. Like you said, ideas are cheap, execution is everything so go ahead sir and execute it well! :)

And about Jim, i dont know. If he jumps out at the very end, it might be a cheesy b horror movie moment. I would say, dont reveal it but leave an inkling feeling to the audience a few times that he may be alive. But not so much that they know for sure. This way, the other characters think hes dead for sure, or one thinks hes dead and the other keeps saying jim must be alive, the audience suspects thru ur clues he may be alive but no one knows for sure. Then at the end have a "is he or is he not going to show up moment" with a few false moments so that the suspecting audience now believe he is dead for sure (for eg, a body being dragged off but it wasnt jims or something better than that plz) and the spring jim. this way the audience is surprised and happy shouting "they knew it!"
 
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I like it. My suggestion would be to have Jim roll down a hill. You might have the gunman be the one to do it. Jill sees the body and the gunman and tears off. In that way, the audience doesn't really think twice and assume he's dead.

Proceed with your action segments. Then when they do their second sweep, the assassins find the bag and notice no body. If you follow that course, you've tipped off the audience that Jim's probably alive. If you want it kept mysterious, his body needs to still be there later. However, you can flash back after they pull away to Jim's body and see his hand move. But if you really want him to surprise, make his "death" obvious--no one is shot then survives being pushed off an embankment. Close up of his bloody body but with closed eyes.

You might want to give the bad guy's car a flat tire. It forces them to have to contend with the witnesses. It also causes them to split up which will give Jake and Jim some time to creatively reduce their numbers. You might not even reveal it's Jim who takes out a couple. Just scenes of the bad guy trying to contact him on the walkie talkie. Then when Jill and Jake are finally surrounded by the head man and one or two henchmen, Jim appears and blows them away with a stolen automatic.

Sounds ambitious for 20 minutes. It's a cheat but you could have the head man give a short explanation--"We can't have any witnesses to ...". In 20 minutes your focus is on the action, so it's a pardonable sin to gloss over why the bad guys are there as long as you resolve the relationship and Jim issue. Sounds like a fun film to write and shoot.
 
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Make sure to have lots of plot cause in my opinion usually the more the better. But bottom line to be repetitive, or go on autopilot. A lot of thrillers make the mistake of having autopilot climaxes.
 
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harmonica44 said:
Make sure to have lots of plot cause in my opinion usually the more the better. .
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And I'll suggest the opposite. Keep it simple.

It's just a short, and you want to roll, let the BF die -- put the girl with the brother in a fight to survive, if you don't show him dead, many are gonna expect the "Surprise" ending which won't actually be a surprise. Change one of the names too, "Jake" and "Jim", too confusing, I couldn't keep them straight. See if you can create tension via the hide and chase with a camera. That's a big challenge!

And unless you have access to authentic uniforms and gear and have actors who know how to move like soldiers or cops, forget it. So easy to tell when people without training are acting like the real thing. Just have some fascist or killer.

my 2.4 cents
 
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This is definitely a thriller, and I don't believe you need any obligatory anything -- whatever the situation calls for, that's what you include.

As is, though, it's missing quite a bit -- what is it the bad guys are after, and how do our heroes go about foiling their devious plans? That's a pretty darned big piece of the puzzle, and without it, you've pretty much just got setup. A good setup, but Act 2 is where the story really thrives, and I'm not seeing much of that, yet.
 
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Ensure your protagonists actively control their narrow/clever escapes and daring actions.

The antags can't always be chasing and the protags always be running, largely benefitting from happenstance and amazing fortune.

There needs to be a really done deal, protags are so screwed, story's over event that they cleverly save themselves from.
For a 20min short, it'll be around the 15/16 min mark.

Everything up to the shot and Linda running back to Jake (consider changing either the name Jim or Jake, audience may find that "difficult" real fast) had better happen in the first one to two minutes.

Additionally, if Jim's concerned Jake's cooking ideas about Linda I don't know how smart it would be to get POed and stomp off leaving the two of them alone together.
Juno?

Also, if James and Linda are gonna be confessing their new-found love there can't be any dead Jim.
In fact, the lovers triangle thing makes it kinda difficult to swap one brother for another without the whole sloppy-seconds issue coming up or some cliche exposition of why Jim is magically all of a sudden copacetic that his brother is now going to be bangin' away at his GF as of a hour or so ago.

That'd be a pretty tough conversation, understanding, acceptance transition even without the thriller distraction going on.
 
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Wheatgrinder. Push your envelope... don't try to be conservative.

Go for an original and exciting concept. TAKE ME somewhere I have never been before.

Get to your story... fast. Make the stakes mountainous...

Lots of conflict with obstacles! Surprise me! Keep that time bomb ticking!

Good luck!

It is what I try to do with every page I write, every script I complete.

Then hope you catch the right reader, or, if you are making the movie yourself, cast right, direct tight, edit even tighter -- but make sure you have fun with it. Fun with the writing. Fun with making the movie. That your cast has fun with it.

Cause it almost always shows...

I am not rich or famous, my 2 cents...
 
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rayw said:
Upon further reflection: The story needs a lot more nudity.


I'm often thrilled by quality nudity.
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Here I was thinking that underlined word would be a link...*sigh* ;)

Anyway, I agree that if Jim thought Jake had a thing for Linda, he certainly wouldn't leave the two of them alone. However, it could work: Jim and Jake argue. Linda breaks the fight up, but starts arguing with both of them. The focus of the argument shifts towards Jake and Linda. Jim is in less of the shots, until it's just closeups of Jake and Linda. Then one of them directs a comment towards Jim, and they notice he's gone. They look up and down the treeline, and see his feet disappear into the brush, like he's knocked down and being dragged away. The run to look for him, but he has disappeared, and they can't find a trail by whomever had dragged him off. After some frantic searching, THEN the gunshot.

I LOVE the idea of Jim being evil!
 
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JoshL said:
Here I was thinking that underlined word would be a link...*sigh* ;)
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EXCELLENT IDEA!

Lettuce try it again...


Upon further reflection: The story needs a lot more nudity.


I'm often thrilled by quality nudity.



There ya go.
That'll teach you.


JoshL said:
I LOVE the idea of Jim being evil!
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How about this: Not only is Jim evil - but so is Josh!

What if Linda (sure you don't wanna make it Jill, just so that we can get REALLY confused?) knows sensitive national security information.
Jim's romance with her has been a scam all along, as well as Joe's brotherhood.
Jim's leaving the two of them alone deliberately for Jack to exploit an emotional situation because Jim and Jeff's supervisor George, boss of the bad guys, is growing impatient with their little scheme to get Jill to cough up the info they want.

Jim and Jarvis, as part of George's boss' idea of a kinder gentler organization, have been stalling because they also just want the information, but don't want Jill hurt or killed in the process.

Forced by the developing situation, Jim's evil character is being plied against Jody's more caring approach to extracting the information.

Jim and Juan don't really know if George's boss, Justine, is going to support them or vacillate to supporting George, cutting off their only support.
Jim will side with the organization.
Justin will side with Jesse.

Who the h3ll was Linda? Anyway, she'll be trapped between them until she strikes a deal with George herself.
 
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