For our AS brief we were asked to make a 2 minute thriller film opening and I really enjoyed this brief as I love thriller films (esp. psychological thrillers) and I decided for the A2 brief to choose the 5 minute short film in its entirety so I could make a full psychological thriller short. I'm a big fan of psychological thrillers and I had recently seen the film Shutter Island, which is now one of my favourite films, and that film inspired me a lot for my ideas. I love the concept of there being 2 separate realities, in Shutter Island there is reality and there is the protagonists fantasy world which we are fooled to believe is the real world. I love this idea and I decided to add that to my film.
I needed a reason for there being a separate reality and the idea was thrown about that the film would follow a simple character, just a late teenager enjoying his life when it is sent down hill after he experiences a crash and enters a coma. There it looks like its going back to reality but this is just a fantasy world in this coma and it was just a question of how he would come back.
Primary ideas are in the last post "A2 Production plan" but I have ultimately come up with a rough storyline that goes as follows:
We follow a simple late teenager leaving his flat on his way to work. The starts as simple as that, but there is something about this particular morning that feels out of place. The news in the papers and on TV talks of a crash, there are faint sounds of sirens in the background and the character generally looks troubled. This is the introduction and the rest of the film acts as a crescendo almost. Things get more tense, the character becomes more troubled, more hints to crashes/hospitals as the film goes on and there's an ever sense of growing panic. The audience is not sure what for and nor is he, yet there will be something or a kind of goal he has to reach at the end. This builds and builds up to a climax which I will keep secret for now ;) whether he reaches his goal or not and whats really going on, what is the meaning of all the sirens and links to crashes? Who is he looking for?
I'm still fairly unclear as how I want the ending to happen, but I do want a sense of panic and I hope the audience will worry for the character and whether he reaches his goal, whatever it is.
