Synopsis Ideas

Idea 1: Water Cooler

My first idea for our short film was a comedy short based around a "water cooler" conversation, a stereotype of office workers. The idea of the film was that one character would be talking to another describing his day, while the other reminisced about theirs. The narrative would be told through flashbacks in a montage format, using a voiceover to portray the conversation. The story would be that one person has had a bad day, while the other has had the opposite. Through the conversation it becomes clear that the person talking has been directly influencing the other's day - for example, if one drops a cup of coffee from a window, the other is hit by the drink. The idea would be that one person would tell half the story and the other would tell the other. The idea could easily be linked to Britishness since we would be able to make the events of the film British-centric, for example the use of public transport could connect the film to national identity. In the end, however, we decided against this idea, since it seemed too difficult to pull off effectively and in the time limit we had.

Idea 2: Receiver
My second idea was a thriller film about a person who receives anonymous instructions over the phone. The idea was that the film would progress through real time as the person follows the instructions, with a twist ending as the instructions lead them into a trap. To convey the sense of real time, the editing of the film would be as smooth as possible, leaving out any cuts or sudden changes of angle and instead easing into each one, making use of masks etc. similar to the editing of Enter The Void. In the end, we decided not to use this idea since the editing would be too difficult to pull off effectively, and we would have to have very elaborate shots to set up to pull off the effect.