So, if they made your manuscript into a movie, and you were the director, how would you want your audiences first sighting of your MC to go? I'd say you see Ali (played by Katie Holmes) lying face down in bed, alone, under the covers, dressed in only a bra and panties. The setting is her apartment in East L.A. (a slightly messy affair with laundry all over the place, etc...) Set to On Mercury by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, we see her roll out of bed and the camera focuses on her from the back, never showing her face, as she throws on a pair of dirty jeans and a t-shirt, then follows her bare feet as she walks the hardwood floor, passing across various trash and people sleeping on the floor, over to the sofa in the living room. Still not revealing her face yet, we see her cook a shot of heroin, and inject herself. Only then do we see her face as she lies back on the couch and lets the high set in. The scene ends with Ali picking up a cell phone and calling her sister. The scene switches to her sister, stuck in traffic on the freeway on her way to the office, starting the narrative scene from Rain When I Die...
Nice. I could actually picture that very well. To me, Katie Holmes seems quite cute, so for her to be a druggie is quite a shock, at least for me. The novel I'm currently working on is a serious drama concerning Multiple Personality Disorder/Dissociative Identity Disorder and busking. When I tell someone the outline of the story it seems a lot like Forrest Gump, although I know it will be very different; it's just because I haven't written very much of it yet! Anyway, the story would start with a red leather briefcase (red is important to the story) with gold buckles being carried by a man, although the opening shot would be just the briefcase. The camera would then zoom out to show a man walking quickly, wearing a brown suit from the 70s, but is clearly a nice quality. At a guess, you would say the man is in his mid-fifties. He is walking a small country road, and he looks at his watch. "Dammit," he says. The scene then changes to him walking up to a tiny train station, obviously still in the countryside. He notices no train is waiting and quickly asks the porter on duty whether the train has left. The porter replies and says that the train will be rather late, at least an hour. Glumly, the man with the briefcase sits down on the only bench, scratched mercilessly to a faded blue. We cut to a shot of the bench head on, and we see another man is sitting on the other side of it, wearing buskers' clothing. He's muttering quietly to himself, staring at the floor. He has a black unkempt beard and a mop of black hair; he looks about thirty years old. The shot then cuts to the man we first saw, although the other man is still in view. He glances at his expensive watch again. Sighs. He realises he will be there for a while and strikes up a conversation with the fellow, albeit a little nervously, considering the busker's peculiar mumblings. "The name's Ralph Carson," he says, sticking out his hand, but being careful not to get too close. After a short silence, he adds, "And you are?" The busker looks at the man and shrugs. Looks back at the tracks. "Depends on the day," he replies. (This isn't where the name of the film would come up, but I don't want to add anymore because people will get bored! Hopefully you enjoyed it a little, though. )
Dante, as it's currently written in my script, is not in the opening scene. The script opens with the USS Sagan attempting orbit with Jupiter and crashing into something it didn't see. This is prelude and forewarning. Dante appears in the first act, doing his job of IT crisis management. A tech says Singapore is down and he steps up to a large touchscreen world map and taps on Singapore to bring up the company's assets (servers, databases, routers and switches) at that site. He handles his day with humor, but an edge of uncertainty and longing. The US and ME are approaching global nuclear war and he is but a passenger on this trip to hell. Another tech calls him over to show him a news report of a standoff between US and ME (Iranian) warships. He asks the tech if he's got somewhere to go if the worst should happen. No.
I'd write a new story that includes me in a compromising position with Hope Solo, I'd make sure it was classic of course, maybe black and white in a Paris hotel room with a shot of the Eiffel Tower looking in through the floor-to-ceiling windows... actually I think I'll start a new story...
Alesia is supposed to be cute. She was a cheerleader in high school and entered into the Miss Teen California pageant before everything went to hell. EDIT: After my girlfriend made me watch "The Help" I'm changing my actress to Emma Stone.
Two women, sat across a booth from each other in a cafe, next to the window. It's nighttime so their reflections should be seen in the window pane... except they're not. One of the women is Lydia, my PT, the other, Evie; soft, delicate with the most caring aquamarine eyes you've ever seen, except we don't really focus on them so much as what's around them-- mascara, deep purple, which has ran to stain her cheeks in streaks. She is staring at the window, obviously passed the point of relentless tears and into the numb void that often follows. It's scary how completely nonchalant she looks with all that makeup smeared on her face. Lydia, across the booth, for her part understands what she's gone through and is putting on her best compassionate face. In the window, rather than a reflection, we see something not usually possible-- a film, or at least what looks like a film is playing, the two women watching it. In this 'film', the camera is impersonating someone's POV and whomever they are is in trouble. A masked man is roughly manhandling this unseen person, placing duct tape over their mouth. He then sweeps them up onto his shoulder, carries them out of the building and into the back of a black transit van. After being slammed onto the floor, the van begins to move, only, curiously it seems to be going backwards. The image in the window then begins to rapidly blur, as if thick condensation had settled in a matter of seconds. Evie shifts a sluggishly curious glance over at Lydia. "Is this another one of those projections you mentioned?" she manages to say. "No, I think that's you crying there," Lydia's painstaking reply nails being dragged down a chalkboard.
Probably a neat interstellar fly around of the mass of space, that focuses in on the Milky way. Then kind of does a fly by of the planets in the solar system, coming to a rest on the small planet the first of the multiple MCs is narrating their thoughts throughout the entire cinematic over view. Maybe Just fall upon the MC in their domicile sitting in a chair observing the environment and narrating from with in as it is not a spoken dialogue. IDK, never made a film before.
I like this thread. Mine would begin with some landscape shots of city traffic played over some random indie song, before focusing in on a town house. The camera zooms in on the front window and the main character does a voice over bit : "If you were to look through my window on any given day....." The camera then takes you through the window and into the living room where Ezra Miller in character as Corbin is sitting cross legged on the floor looking at a gun which he is holding in his hands. He shouts an expletive and presses the gun to his temple. The camera starts shaking and his hands begin to tremble. The voice over continues: " ...you'd see me making empty threats to myself with a gun pressed to my head. This was not insanity but simply an alternate version of normality. My normality." The camera would focus on him considering pulling the trigger, perhaps a few close up shots of his finger twitching. He whispers a prayer as the camera closes in on his eyes. He closes them tightly. "Do it" the voice over says. Then a gunshot noise goes off. The camera changes to a different angle showing him dropping the gun and throwing himself to the floor curling up into the fetal position. The camera pans across the room and the voice over says "I wanted to pull the trigger, but at the same time I didn't. I wanted to die, but at the same time I didn't." Not that I've imagined it before this or anything
I am writing something that is entirely non-x-rated, so the opening seen would be just the protagonist narrating the first line of my book. Not even a spec of sex in it, but there is some drinking. Is that boring?
Not enough information to go on. If it is an interesting line and it is delivered during (or leading into) an interesting shot, then it need not be boring.
My movie would open on the MC in a vast, empty, silent green prairie that is featureless except for a wagon trail. She looks around in confusion (not knowing where she is or how she got there) and yells for help. She climbs to the top of a hill and looks out at the horizon all around her. (This sequence would be reprised at the end of the movie, some 60 years later in the story, when she climbs the same hill and looks down at the city that was built in that time.) In a sequence inspired by this classic, a small figure appears on the trail on the horizon. As it comes into view, the MC makes her way down toward it, and we see it is a caravan of wagons pulled by oxen. The MC meets the travelers and asks where she is, and the story begins.
