Film Opening Idea Developing exercise The Journey Film Opening Idea Developing exercise

The Exercise To polish our idea developing skills, we carried out an exercise; in which we chose a random idea, object and location. Our story was to revolve around a ‘tiger parrot’, the object we got was a ‘wrench’ and the location was supposed to be an ‘abandoned street on a Sunday afternoon’.

The Characters One of the last three tiger parrot. Kept hidden by a black market smuggler. Keeps him alive but treats him very poorly since while it will be sold for high price, selling is really difficult without raising alarms. There is a kid, in his early teens, let’s say 13 years old. He is an orphan who lives with his uncle and aunt. The aunt is really cruel and keeps him looked up in a small cellar. She doesn’t even like him going to school and regularly gives him a beating. He is really oppressed. A black market smuggler, looks dangerous. Serious man. Would do anything to make money

Character Visualization The kid will be in a red hood and jeans, messy hair. Cute innocent face, quite sad. The man will be wearing a dirty shirt/vest and jeans. He will be a man with a strong built and a stern dangerous look.

Location It will be a hot sunny day. A slightly elevated street with no soul in sight. Houses lined on both sides Like this one:

Plot part 1 The street will be abandoned and then we will see the kid entering the street from one side. He will be walking and we will move to a close-up of his feet walking ahead, this shot will then be replaced with that of the tires of a van, also entering the street. It will cross the kid and as it moves a head, it will break down. The owner (the smuggler) will exit and move to the back door, take out a tool box and close it again hurriedly. But in the short while that the door remains open, the kid will see an exotic bird (one of the last three tiger parrots) closed in small cage and looking really sad, injured and thirsty. The boy will have a flashback of two hands (his aunt) pushing him in the attic, throwing a torn drawing at his feet (we will see mom and dad written on two of the pieces) and locking him in. He will decide to help the bird.

Plot part 2 As the man will be busy trying to fix the car, the boy will crawl up to to the back of the van, very slowly open the backdoor and pick up the cage. The bird will get lively but the boy will motion it to stay quiet. The boy will slowly move away from the van clutching the cage real tight and suddenly the door will close and behind him will be the man, with a wrench in his hand and a sneer on his. The kid will turn around and run at full speed. We will get an extreme close up of the wrench’s face, then a close-up of the man’s hand gripping the wrench tightly and then the next shot will be a full body shot of the man and he will break into a run after the kid. The opening will end at this shot. ECU of Wrench

Credits Only the main credits will be shown, like director, producer, d.o.p and the main cast etc. The movie will start with the shot of the sky, camera slowly moving to the abandoned street and a few credits appearing on the street. One on the top right and the next on the bottom left corner, then next again on the top right corner and then again on the bottom left corner and so on. The remaining credits will appear while the feet of the boy are being shown and then when the tires are being shown. The last credit will appear on the door when the smuggler closes it after taking out his toolbox. At the end, after the man breaks into a run, will come the title of the film.

The Van We are thinking that the Van will look like this, though it can still be changed if we think of a better look. This is the door to which I am referring as the back door.