Sitting down and having another rethink about my ideas, now I think that I have got a potential idea that with some work on it, could be a story that I am happy with.
It starts with a little boy aged about 5 years old climbing the stairs to the attic, where he has turned it into his own den. The attic itself is a big place and just the place for a 5 year old boy to create an den. He is obsessed with space and when he grows up he wants to be an Astronaut. So he spends his days after school in the attic, playing in the den that he has created from bits and bobs around the house that he has collected over time. When we are introduced to the attic to us it is just random objects but to him they represent something. For him the objects are part of his own space ship and we see what they in his imagination. He has used boxes that he has found in the loft to create the inside of a space rocket and on the boxes themselves he has drawn on the buttons ans dials. He uses an old unicycle that he found in the back of the attic and to him it is some kind of machine that he can drive on a planet. He has also made his own uniform from pieces of clothing that he found and he wears an motorcycle helmet that he found. All the things that are there all have a meaning to them somehow and are revealed throughout.
As the boy starts to grow, he starts to spend less time in there and it slowly starts to become dusty and abandoned. The next time we see the boy he is a 30 year old man and has been made to clean out the attic by his wife. As they have moved into the houses after his mother and father died. We watch as the man enters the attic, turns the light and sees that his mother and father never got rid of his den he created. He starts to throw all of his creations away until he spots the unicycle. Still thinking that he is still a 5 year old kid he decided that he shall have a go. So as he starts to rid around, we see the man in his space suit just like we did when he was a little boy riding around on the his make believe planet. Then all of sudden the attic door swings open with a massive bang, startling the man. Ending with revealing the mans wife staring at him with an very unamused face and the man having a very red face.
I dunno, I think the plots in your previous post (http://sasha-hart.blogspot.com/2011/02/ideas-so-far.html) are stronger...
ReplyDeleteI think the idea of an older man looking back at the past carrys more weight than someone at 30. I guess its just that at 30 you can still kinda look back and remember; at about 60 theres like a 50 year gap between the past and present making it that much more poignant.
There's that and the fact that at 30 you can still do near enough anything, it'll just be a little tougher whilst at 60 the body becomes a lot less durable so an older character could have all these grand, extremely ambitious ideas but deep down know that they'll never happen which I think would give the story so much more emotional value than a middle aged guy fondly looking back at his childhood, but thats just me ;)
Hey Sasha :D
ReplyDeleteThere is absolutely a lovely story simmering away here; it reminds me tonally of the short film one of our recent graduates made:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNahlu02yIg&feature=related
(especially the end).
Technically, you've got to show a long expanse of time in a short duration and that can be tricky - but not impossible; it would come down to an economy of visual information.
You know, I'm wondering if, perhaps, you could make your story about a naughty little boy, who is always stealing stuff - including a unicycle from a street performer or similar - and the final scene is the big reveal, when you realize he's building an extraordinary spaceship in his attic. Perhaps you could show, in the first act, that his family life is miserable - abusive even - and the whole film is about making the audience believe that he is a good-for-nothing asbo kid, who's always spraypainting stuff, nicking items from outside people's houses; we could see him, taking stuff up into the attic looking shifty - and then, in a heart-breaking and amazing reveal, show that he's built this world in the attic - I don't know, where he's got the unicycle suspended from the rafters, it's spokes covering in foil stars, so that when it spins it looks like the milkyway; there's christmas lights twinkling - because all the boy really wants is to escape...
If you're worried about using ideas from other people - from me - please don't. The crux of this unit is about visual story-telling and execution and all plots are borrowed, recycled and reframed. Just like Hitchcock, you could spend the first 40 secs of your running time, making us think we're watching one kind of story, only to reveal that we're not...
What all your story ideas have had is poignancy and a sense of 'aching' for something - anyway, give it some thought. You're very nearly there! :)
Thank You both for your feedback it has really help. Phil I really like your idea and I think I will try and combined with with some of my initial ideas. So hopefully if I keep working on it I will find a story that I really like. So thank you again.
ReplyDelete