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I'm not out to compete, I'm just out to be myself....
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j/k ;) |
I don't get what the previous rounds were for, since no one was eliminated but the no shows.....
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I couldnt change the basic rule midway through the exercise...it wouldnt be fair to someone who was looking to qualify because of that very rule I stated above. And also, people dropped out, and there werent enough participants who had been a part of even 2 out of 3 rounds. Would there be even 10 left after the first 3 Tests? I was beginning to wonder... Besides, the Preliminaries were contested very keenly among the participants, and also served to be an example of what Idol would be about. I dont think even one Finalist out of those 10 would say that they didnt give their best shot at their Tests, and they dont deserve a spot in it. Even those who got eliminated because of worser grades, gave it their best shot, before realising this event wasnt for their talents. |
ELIMINATION ROUND #1
I welcome all Finalists to the first Elimination Round of HDC Idol. From here on, each round will result in the elimination of ONE of you until we reach the Final 3, who will advance on to the Grand Finale stage of HDC Idol. Your first Challenge is a very arduous and tough task, so I wish you all the very best and hope you raise your own levels to meet it. All 10 of you are grouped into 5 groups, and will be given ONE common Challenge each. The catch here is to frame your answer in such a way that its superior than the other one who is answering the same Challenge. Grades will be given out accordingly, and the worst Grader will be out of HDC Idol. Point to Note :- If you do not answer your challenge within the stipulated time, you are automatically eliminated from HDC Idol. Which means, we may have more than one Finalist eliminated in Elimination Round #1 itself. Of course, the fittest will survive and continue on. Here are your groupings and your challenges... - ChronoGrl and Papillon Noir - Orson Welles' War of the Worlds was a huge radio hit. Choose a horror novel of your choice and turn it into a radio masterpiece. - Roshiq and Cactus - You are a fresh indie movie director who dreams of making it big. Do you have what it takes to be the next big thing in horror? - FerretChucker and Disease - You have been paid handsomely to write a werewolf story as your next novel. Any ideas ticking around in your brain for this? - Alkytrio666 and Bloodrayne - Write a horror script centered around the legend of Davy Jones' Locker. - Bwind22 and The Flayed One - As a mainstream commercial director, put forth your visualisation of a theme for a possible horror flick on the whole OK Corral Gunfight incident. You have 48 Hours to do your research and post your entries (either on here or in a PM to me). Failure to do so WILL result in elimination. Also, be mindful of the fact that someone else is ALSO doing the same pitch, so you have to be one step ahead of him/her. Best of Luck!! |
This is gonna be good! Excellent tasks, V!!!
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Great challenge!!!
I'm strapped for time, though. :( I'll get in at least SOME effort by Friday. |
48 hours from when that task was posted, let's see, that gives me... 45 hours and 17 minutes.
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I'll give it my best shot. But for this, would it be better to send them to you but not post them in here until both people for each challenge have submitted. That way they don't know what the other person's is like.
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Put yourself in a mainstream director's shoes, and think of a moment where you hit upon a goldmine of an idea. Visualise the concept, how you might develop it with script and screenplay writers, casting directors, cinematography etc.
In short, put your mind's visuals of the theme on paper before the Judges. |
Well, I'm not scared to go first or post publically, so here goes. If Flayed can top me, cheers to him.
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TITLE: AT SUNDOWN PLOT SYNOPSIS: Arizona Territory - 1881 A gang of cattle rustlers known as 'Cowboys' were wreaking havoc in the Arizona territory. They were dubbed 'Cowboys' because of their affection for drinking the blood from the cattle they rustled, leaving only dried and withered corpses behind. Eventually, cow blood was not enough to quench their thirst and they began to prey on the local townsfolk, effectively becoming the first vampires in recorded history. (Although it did exist, the term 'vampire' was not yet commonplace because Bram Stoker had yet to pen Dracula and bring the term to pop culture.) The 'Cowboys' were led by Curly Bill Brocious, but the most ruthless among them was Johnny Ringo, who was known to kill for sport when he wasn't even thirsty. Eventually, the 'Cowboys' arrived in Tombstone, Arizona Territory and began to prey on the townsfolk, mainly orphans and whores and others who would not be missed until one night when the town Sheriff confronted them and asked them to move on. Wanting to set an example, Curly Bill savagely killed Sheriff Fred White in front of a half dozen witnesses. With no law in town, the 'Cowboys' ran amok, slaying and feasting on whomever they desired. One townsman with a sense of nobility, Virgil Earp, assumed the role of deputy and tried to pick up where Sheriff White had left off in casting the Cowboys out of Tombstone. The Cowboys did not take kindly to this and several verbal altercations took place. With tensions escalating, Virgil enlisted the help of two of his brothers, Morgan and Wyatt, as well as Wyatt's good friend Doc Holliday. Together, the four of them attempted to rid the town of the Cowboys to little avail. At sundown on August 26, 1881, the Earp clan came across five Cowboys feasting on the corpse of a local prostitute behind Harwood's Lumber Store near the OK Corral. Weapons were drawn, shots were fired, thirty shots in less than thirty seconds to be exact, and when the dust settled three Cowboys were dead and the other two had disappeared in to the night. Morgan and Virgil Earp both suffered nonfatal bullet wounds, Doc Holliday was grazed in the hip and Wyatt came away unscathed. The Cowboys realized the Earp's meant business and the town quieted down for a couple months, but in March 1882 the Cowboys took their revenge and Morgan Earp was killed outside a billiard hall and sucked dry of his blood. This led to Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday forming a posse and setting out to vanquish the Cowboys once and for all. Due to wounds suffered at the OK Corral shootout, Virgil Earp was unable to assist in this and was relegated to protecting the families in Contention City. Wyatt, Holliday and a small posse trailed and killed more than a dozen Cowboys, including both Curly Bill Brocius and Johnny Ringo, while the rest were forced to flee Arizona Territory and the wrath of Wyatt Earp. CREW: Director: Brian Wind Writer: David Webb Peoples & Brian Nelson Casting: Lora Kennedy Set Design: Ernie Bishop Cinematography: Anthony Dod Mantle CAST: Wyatt Earp: Christian Bale Doc Holliday: Peter Krause Morgan Earp: Kevin Dillon Virgil Earp: Richard Dean Anderson Curly Bill: Ian McShane Johnny Ringo: Christian Slater Ike Clanton: Ray Liotta Billy Clanton: Giovanni Ribisi Billy Claiborne: Stephen Baldwin Tom McLaury: Kevin McKidd Frank McLaury: Dean Winters Sheriff Fred White: Robert Forrester __________________________ Clearly, I took some liberties here with both historical fact and vampire mythology. I'd like to point those out so no one thinks I am misinformed or ignorant. The OK Corral shootout took place at 3pm, not sundown. Morgan Earp was killed inside the billiard hall by a shot from outside; he wasn't killed outside of it. These vampires do not turn in to bats, burn in the sunlight, have fangs, respond negatively to religious items or require a stake through the heart in order to die. They are basically humans that kill mercilessly and drink the blood of their victims. |
This is an interesting scenario. A very unique combination of Western & horror. I'm impressed. But- I'm not sure about trusting such a project to first time feature director, you.
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I like it!
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Hmm, I don't know a whole lot about werewolves, but I'll give this my best shot.
Like Anne The word werewolf conjures up, in most people's brains, a wolf man howling in the light of the full moon. I want to keep that traditional aspect but go with a new direction that gets the reader's attention. There have been different ways of a person getting lycanthropy. It could be that their ancestors had sex with demon, as is the case in The Demonata series, or simply bitten by another werewolf. Or a case of a genetic experiment gone wrong. For mine I think I'll go with something different, but yet slightly similar. Here's a basic synopsis of my story. My story begins in the year 1326 when a nameless explorer has traveled out into the arctic along. He's nearly dead and so sets his dogs free. In the distance, he can see something fall down to Earth. The dogs run in it's direction. Several hours later, the dogs return and begin eating the nearly dead man. They drag him out from the cave he's in, into the moonlight and then suddenly they all drop down dead. Bleeding to death, in a last effort of comfort, he pulls the dead dogs closer to him and dies. Seven hundred years later, Edgar Lee is with his team of researchers doing studies on the affects of global warming on the arctic. Edgar and one of his Asian colleagues go out to gather some specimens. Whilst digging Edgar falls through the ice into a cavern. It's full of dead carcasses. Suddenly, the Asian above starts screaming "Like Anne! Like Anne!". His dead body falls through as well. Something jumps down the hole and rushes at Edgar. Whilst it's biting his neck he has time to pull out his gun and shoot the creature. He wakes up in a hospital bed, having been rescued by others in the team who heard the shot. They found no sign of the creature. Eventually he gets better and three years later, he's living his life as normal, with a baby on the way, but lately he's been having nightmares of the creature that attacked him, the words "Like Anne" ringing around in his head. One day he loses his temper in a bank with someone. He's kicked out of the bank, but somehow, hours later, he follows a smell which leads him to the man he was angered by. He nearly gets into a fight with him, but resists at the last moment. He's contacted by a "Mr. Howl", and told to go to the travel agents in town. He goes there and is faced with the man he was angered by. The doors lock behind him and he is told to go down the hatch in the floor. He's about to resist when the man's eyes glow yellow, like a dog's, and he says; "Do you not want to know why you have nightmares, Edgar?" Lee reluctantly goes down the hatch, finding himself in an old sewer system that has somehow been made up to look something like an abandoned hotel, yet it still drips and the smell lingers. In a conversation, he learns he was bitten by something only known as "Neun". He was a German explorer who's eight dogs were "chosen" by the heavenly one. Under the light of the full moon, they died together and became one. This formed Neun. Over the years, forty seven people have been attacked by Neun, of those forty three remain. They live unnaturally long lives and have developed connections over the years which prevent them and Neun from being disturbed. Edgar doesn't believe it and tries to leave, but is quickly stopped. He is shown "The Lunar Tunnel", where the light of the moon is replicated and the people become Werewolves, or Lycans. Now a believer, he still wants to leave to be with his girlfriend and unborn child. The Lycan People imprison him for three months in solitude, with constant videos of viscous dogs playing. When he comes out of the room, he is in the mindset of the others. Now they trust him, he is set free to do whatever he wants. He roams around the city, killing people. He is about to kill a woman but stops when he hears her voice. It's his girlfriend. When she sees him, the shock sends her into labor. That's when the other werewolves arrive to claim the child, the only one ever conceived by a lycan. He fights the other lycans off, eventually winning, nearly dead. That's when he turns around and sees that his girlfriend has given birth, but to a monstrous creature that looks more like a cross between a crab and a slug than a werewolf. The creature has already killed his girlfriend, and weak as he is, it slaughters him too. The closing paragraphs explain that the Lee's baby was in no way truly his, or his girlfriend's. It was the heavenly one's true form. The dogs of Neun had found and devoured it. It's blood drove them insane. They dragged the german man out of the cave into the moonlight, for it gives the heavenly one strength, however their bodies could not cope with the stress and they died. Over time, due to the blood running through all of them, the moon combined the creatures to make Neun. In biting the people who survived, Neun passed on his wolfen genes which slowly mutated the humans, but what they didn't know was that they were also host to the heavenly one's DNA, which corrupted some of their cells. It used the womb of Lee's girlfriend to grow once again. Just a side note, the werewolves would walk mainly on all fours, have bones painfully jutting out in places, they would have sharp fangs and large ears, but not snouts. Their face would be relatively the same except hairier and tougher. They would also have tails. The change wouldn't be very painful, and would feel almost dreamlike for the lycan. |
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The challenge specifically states that I am the director. (And technically, I've done 2 shorts so it'd be my first feature, but not my first time directing.) |
Very good, FC - I like it.
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I didn;t know that about the Lycan thing. I had heard Lycanthropy and lycanthrope and thought that Lycan would be a used term. Thanks for the tips.
And thanks Hammerfan. |
The briny deep is definitely not my forté, and I know nothing of writing scripts, but I'll give it a shot.
This is a modern-day version of a very old legend. A man and his girlfriend set out on an adventurous vacation to Acapulco. They decide to go deep-sea diving...While looking for a place to rent scuba equipment they chance upon a coastal maritime curiosity shop that's run by a creepy looking old man...The old man shows them a treasure map that marks a sunken ship, supposedly sunk by pirates...The story the old man tells them says that the pirates set the ship on fire (as was common) after pillaging it and killing everyone on board, but before they could escape the fire, a keg of gunpowder in the ship's hold exploded, and all of the pirates, except one,died before they could escape. The one surviving pirate made it back to shore, barely alive, and created the map that was now in the possession of the shop owner...However, the pirate never recovered the treasure (gold dubloons) on the ship because he went crazy (either from exposure while floating adrift before coming to shore, some sort of mental trauma from the entire ordeal, or something else)...Because the pirate was clearly insane, no one really took him seriously, so the treasure was never searched for, and according to the shop owner, could still be there...If the event really happened, and if the treasure even existed...It's all based on the story of a crazy old pirate, so who knows? Anyway, the man is intrigued and his girlfriend thinks it would be fun even if they don't find any treasure, plus they like the look of the old treasure map and the fact that it has an interesting story to go with it, so even if they find no treasure, they have this awesome map to keep...They buy it and set out, chuckling at the old man's warning that "All pirate treasure is cursed, they say". In the water, at the correct location, the couple actually DO come across a sunken ship...They explore but find no skeletons, and no treasure...A little disappointing, but still fun...As they are about to swim to the surface the man sees something gleaming in the light of his flashlight...It's a gold coin....He picks it up, examines it, shows it to his girlfriend...They look around the spot for more, find none, and head to the surface...Back on the boat they look at it closer, it looks very old, and it's clearly gold, but neither of them have ever seen anything like it before...They are excited, and they've had a great trip. They get ready to call it a day...But...the boat won't start (typical, right?)...No big deal, this is modern-day, they pull out their cell phones...No reception...Ship's radio...Static...They try the bright red, blinky mayday beacon, and THAT actually works...So, they decide they'll just wait until someone sees it...They have a galley below deck with some food and bottled water, so they can sit for a whole week if they have to, they are upset but not exactly panicking...Not yet, anyway. After about an hour, as they sit on the deck eating lunch, they see a ship...It's headed toward them, and they are relieved...3 men board their boat, but, as it turns out, they aren't exactly rescuers...Modern-day pirate story, with modern-day pirates...They kill the man and his girlfriend, quite gruesomely, remove all valuables from the boat and burn it...Right over the very spot where the pirates died many years before. However, that's not the end of the story...Or the man. The man 'wakes up' at the bottom of the ocean, inside what he recognizes as the sunken ship that he and his girlfriend had explored earlier...He has no gear on, but he isn't drowning...That's likely because, as he notices, he isn't BREATHING...As he looks around to try to figure out what's going on, he sees his girlfriends mutilated corpse...He freaks out and tries to get out of the ship, but a hellish figure appears in front of him...The figure speaks and identifies himself as Davy Jones...The man is stunned that he can hear the man speak clearly, as if they weren't underwater...He tries to speak as well, and finds that he also is speaking clearly...He asks Davy what is happening and why. Davy Jones explains that the man is a pirate, and that he (Jones) is the keeper of 'Pirate Hell'...The man insists that he is not a pirate, and Jones points out that the coin he possesses (the man forgot it was still in his pocket) was clearly that of a pirate, as was the map that was also in his pocket (oddly not damaged at all by the water). The man explained the entire situation, insisted that he was innocent, and also wanted to know why his girlfriend was just a mutilated corpse in the water, instead of ending up like him...Davy explained "She's not a pirate, she will be judged by another". Anyway, Davy Jones ends up believing that the man is clearly not a pirate, and as such he cannot enter 'Pirate Hell'...Since the man was innocent, Davy made a deal with him (your typical 'deal with the devil')...He told the man that he could release him, but he would still be dead OR he could actually restore the man's life, if he would carry out some tasks...Things that the man would clearly NOT want to do, but restoration to life comes with a steep price. Davy Jones wanted the souls of 10 pirates' decendents...He gave their names and locations to the man, and told him that he would have to kill them, and remove their hearts...Davy Jones also told him that 2 of the men were the same ones who killed him and his girlfriend...That was enough to make him agree to the deal The next thing he knew, he was in his hotel room in Acapulco, completely dry...Now he thought he must have just been dreaming or something, but when he looked in the mirror above the bathroom sink, saw that he had blood on his face and shirt, when he reached to touch the blood on his face, he saw that it was also on his hands...He reached in his pocket to see if the coin or map was there, but instead he pulled out the list of names and locations...It wasn't a dream. He filled the sink to wash his face and hands, and when he looked into the water, he saw Davy Jones's face...He told him, "This time is borrowed, you haven't earned your life back yet. You have only one week to finish the task, or you will be dead" So, he locates the 10 people (one of whom happens to be the creepy store owner), and also the 2 that killed him and his girlfriend (easy, one was leaving a bar, the other was on a boat at the marina)...He takes pleasure in torturing those 2...He removes all of the hearts and puts them in the freezer, figuring Jones will tell him what to do with them when the week is over...He makes quite a bloody, gutty mess at the scene of each 'soul collection', and of course the police are hot on his trail. They find him at his hotel, covered in blood, screaming into the sink "Answer me!"...They also find the hearts in the freezer...He tells the police that he's innocent, that he had no choice...As they sit in the hotel room, he tells them everything that happened, and he asks them how they found him...They tell him that they've been looking for him since they found his boat...He said his boat was set on fire and sank...They informed him that his boat was perfectly fine. in the marina, and his girlfriend's mutilated corpse was found on board, as well as the map, which led them to the murdered curiosity shop owner because some of the locals had seen the map at the shop before. The man was clearly insane...They lead him out of the hotel room...As the door closes, an evil chuckle is heard from the bathroom sink, and water gurgles down the drain. |
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Ferret- an interesting take on werewolves. A bit muddled and complicated, but you'll have plenty of time to work that out in a novel. Good marks for originality.
Rayne- Plenty of gruesome touches here. Definitely a product of your twisted mind. There's no mention made of the man being concerned about his girlfriend's death- he makes to attempt to bargain for getting her life restored. The man comes off as selfish and unsympathetic. Perhaps this is what you intended in order to make his ultimate punishment more fitting. A good effort. |
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Elimination Round 1
Part of what makes Welles' broadcast of War of the Worlds so iconic is that it actually inspired mass hysteria in the American listeners of that 1938 Halloween evening. What was science fiction on the page translated to earnest reporting on the radio waves, and the atmosphere of tense, paranoid, anxious anticipation of World War II, the American public was horrified of the unknown and ready to believe that the next big horror was coming from the skies.
In order to replicate the impact of this broadcast, we have to consider horror that is relevant to this day in age and is also believable. While we've come a long way since 1938 (I doubt that creatures from outerspace would be within our real of believing now), there are some events that still strike terror in the hearts and minds of the masses. What seems to be relevant in terms of mass hysteria and horror is the horror that hits close to home: Natural disasters, terrorism, xenophobia, and illness. With the panic and distress following the spread of Avian influenza and SARS in 2002, it’s clear that the horror of the spread of disease is quick to terrify the masses. I propose that, to create a pure horror radio broadcast that could convince and terrify the world at large, we should adapt Max Brooks' World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War into a series of faux eyewitness reports of a mysterious “illness” ravaging the impoverished nations of the underdeveloped world. The believability factor would come with not only the eyewitness perspective, but also America’s predisposed xenophobic nature (particularly in the feared Communist China) toward third world underdeveloped countries. The first “report” would begin with Brooks’ first “eyewitness report”: Dr. Kwang Jing-shu. The following is from Max Brook’s World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War (New York: Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., 2006), 4 – 10. A sample of the broadcast: Reports continue coming in describing the unidentified illness.Our first latest report comes from Dr. Kwang Jing-shu of the Chongqing province of China. (Dr. Kwang Jin-shu begins to speak in Mandarin. An English translator is heard over his voice) The first outbreak I saw was in a remote village that officially had no name. It was known by its villagers as “New Dachang.” The villagers were keeping their sick in their communal meeting hall. There were seven of them, all on cots, all barely conscious. I asked the villagers who had been taking care of these people. They said no one, it wasn’t “safe.” I noticed that the door had been locked from the outside. The villagers were clearly terrified. They cringed and whispered; some kept their distance and prayed. I knelt to examining the first patient. She was running a high fever, forty degrees centigrade, and she was shivering violently. Barely coherent, she whimpered slightly when I tried to move her limbs. There was a wound in her right forearm, a bite mark. As I examined it more closely, I realized that it wasn’t from an animal. The bite radius and teeth marks had to have come from a small, or possibly young, human being. I examined the six other patients. All showed similar symptoms, all had similar wounds on various parts of their bodies. I asked one man, the most lucid of the group, who or what had inflicted these injuries. He told me it had happened when they had tried to subdue “him.” I found “Patient Zero” behind the locked door of an abandoned house across town. He was twelve years old. His wrists and feet were bound with plastic packing twine. Although he’d rubbed off the skin around his bounds, there was no blood. There was no blood on his other wounds, not on the gouges on his legs or arms, or from the large dry gap where his right big toe had been. He was writhing like an animal; a gag muffled his growls. The boy’s skin was cold and gray as the cement on which he lay. I could find neither his heartbeat nor his pulse. His eyes were wild, wide, and sunken back in their sockets. They remained locked on me like a predatory beast. Throughout the examination he was inexplicably hostile. His movements were so violent I had to call for two of the largest villagers to help me hold him down. Initially they wouldn’t budge, cowering in the doorway like baby rabbits. I explained that there was no risk of infection if they used gloves and masks. When they shook their heads, I made it an order, even though I had no lawful authority to do so. The two men knelt beside me. One held the boy’s feet while the other grasped his hands. I tried to take a blood sample and instead extracted only brown, viscous matter. As I was withdrawing the needle, the boy began another bout of violent struggling. The man holding the boy’s arms decided it might be safer if he braced them against the floor with his knees. But the boy jerked again and I heard his left arm snap. Jagged ends of both radius and ulna bones stabbed through his gray flesh. Although the boy didn’t cry out, didn’t even seem to notice, it was enough for both assistance to leap back and run from the room. I instinctively retreated. The boy began to twist in my direction, his arm ripped completely free. Flesh and muscle tore from one another until there was nothing except the stump. His now free right arm, still tied to the severed left hand, dragged his body across the floor. I hurried outside, locking the door behind me. I began to hear banging on the door, the boy’s fist pounding weakly against the thin wood. It was all I could do not to jump at the sound. I prayed they would not notice the color draining from my face. I shouted, as much from fear as frustration, that I had to know what happened to this child. The boy’s mother came forward. She admitted that it had happened when the boy and his father were “moon fishing,” a term that describes diving for treasure among the sunken ruins of the Three Gorges Reservoir. The boy came up crying with a bite mark on his foot. He didn’t know what had happened, the water had been too dark and muddy. His father was never seen again. |
I think your choice of material is good. Zombie lore is very popular. Your excerpt is too talky though. That may seem a strange comment to make about a radio broadcast- but if you listen to War of the Worlds, there are no long passages of description like this. It is presented in the form of live news coverage of events as they happen- short bursts of description with sound effects, mixed with interviews of on the scene participants.
This effect could be carried out with your script. It could be presented in the form of an on the scene audio diary. For instance- when he's examining tthe boy, he calls out to the villagers and orders them to help him. We hear them protest, and we hear the Dr. persuade them. Then he describes what he sees, in its gruesome detail, as the boy's arm comes off... He doesn't tell us there was banging on the door- we hear it, as we hear the boy's calls.... Good marks for subject matter. Low marks for execution. You've done much better. |
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In terms of the "You've done much better" remark, you sound like my parents, teachers, and professors. :rolleyes: Grading should be blind. That way I don't have to compete with high expectations. :p |
A Shot In the Dark
Plot synopsis: A man, visibly upset and obviously drunk, sets in a bar talking to a stranger. He is Billy Claiborne, ex-cowboy. Quote “I was there that day. The day they shot up the cowboys and started the movement what ran us out of town. History will remember us as villains; it ain't so. We was a hard working bunch. Some of us was brothers, but we was kin, all of us. Sure, we did some damned right unlawful things. Weren't nothin' no one else wasn't doin if they were needing to survive. But the folk, they were generally happy. Ain't nothing was wrong with this town of Tombstone, until those bastard Earp brothers came down on us and brought the devil with them.” The story is told through the eyes of Bill Claiborne, recounting the events of the Earps rise to power and they're attempt to put the town under their thumb to increase their market share on gambling. They always had their ace in the hole, the devil himself, Doc Holliday. Quote: “They called him educated; schooled in language and a gentleman. We called it the devil's tongue. He spoke his language through a cleft lip and walked on cleft feet. And any man what seen him gamble should've known without doubt that was the devil's luck. Any man who feared god, that is.” The town, a little lawless but generally happy, resists the Earps constraints on them, especially not being able to carry their weapons. Billy goes on to recount many violent pistol whippings and arrests to anyone who disobeyed their weapons orders. The cowboys try to fight back, but you can't win when someone has the very devil on their side. The events finally lead up to the infamous gunfight, which although took about thirty seconds “seemed like an eternity.” Billy, as one of the two men who ran, feels guilty. The shots loom large, as while most of the Earp clan get injured, Docs eyes glow as the darkness whips around him and he fires shots into the cowboys. Quote: “They say although he was shot, the bullet hit his holster. I'll tell you this, there was no holster. It was as though he pulled his guns from the air itself, and the bullet strayed from him as though it feared to touch him. Had the others not held him back, he would have killed the whole town. You could see it in those eyes.” Billy, now almost in tears and lamenting about how he ran while the others faced down evil, looks into the strangers dark face. “I can't live with what I've done and what I've seen. I can't run. I've come back here to Tombstone to make my peace with my maker. Lord knows that evil will find me. I only hope when it does, and I look into those horrible eyes one last time, I'll be able to forgive myself like him up above is supposed to.” Billy then stands up and walks towards the door. “Do what you will, stranger. I knew you'd come, sooner or later. Outside, you and I will come to terms. I will turn and look hell into it's eyes one last time and fire into its depths. If I see the ghost of my brothers, then I'll ask them to forgive me for being such a coward. I'm a coward who's asked to be called Billy the Kid, but I don't deserve his good name. I'm a coward like the one what killed him.” Billy turns to look the stranger in the eyes, and we see the glow. The screen goes black as a single shot rings out. Screenplay Kathryn Bigelow Main Cast: Billy Claiborne - Brenden Sexton III Wyatt Earp - Liam Neeson Doc Holliday - Robert Carlyle Stranger - Michael Madsen |
Very atmospheric, Flayed! A completely different take from Bwind, yet an equally original storyline. I like it. You do know the title's been used already, right?
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The Locker
Davy Jones’ Locker -noun: the ocean's bottom, esp. when regarded as the grave of all who perish at sea. (Dictionary.com) Fremantle, Western Australia, current day. Braylon Reynolds is an author seemingly at peace with himself and his life. The film opens in his small house by the Fremantle port as he is finishing a day’s writing and the sun is setting. He lives alone, but his routine is free and easy and it is obvious he has been living there for quite some time. He is somewhere around the age of 35. In the beginning of the film, a pattern is developed; by day Braylon sits and writes via his dated typewriter and by night he walks across the broad dirt road to “Chip’s”, a bar where he seems very at ease and well-liked. He is shown conversing with the regulars (which are the entirety of the customers) and the bartender, Chip. Of specific importance are the transitions between these locations, the house and the bar, and the way that Braylon looks so comfortable with the land, the remote waves of the Indian Ocean, and all the noises a port makes, day and night. One evening, Braylon finishes writing and, as usual, and leaves his place. On his way across the street, he notices a large ship ported next to the usual smaller ones. He wanders over and, while conversing with one of the seamen, learns that the ship is to set sail for a port in Kenya the day after tomorrow and was still in need of some crew. He sounds interested but doesn’t give any final response. He heads over to “Chip’s”. The mood should be loose and casual, and the evening begins like any other. Braylon gets very drunk amongst his bar friends and is shown enjoying himself (maybe a little too much) over billiards, darts, and other activities one is accustomed to enjoying in a bar. One by one the regulars leave, and finally, only Braylon remains. Drunkenly, Braylon tells Chip they are to have one more beer each, on him. Chip nods, but looks distant and broken. He walks away and comes back with a couple of bottles. Braylon cracks his open, then jumps as he looks back up at his friend and server. Chip is the same as he ever was save one detail: where once there were two very human eyes there are now two black saucers, jelly-like and indefinite. Chip is crying, and tears stream from the saucers in big waves. He warns Braylon not to go with the ship, begs him, pleads with him. The scene ends. --- Braylon is on board, and has a small cabin to himself. It is assumed that he and the rest of the crew took off no more than a day or so before. There are several scenes involving Braylon conversing with the crew, and of course performing small duties as he signed on to do, but in the evenings when the other crew members were mingling, he would go back to his cabin and write. He seems more distant and unsure than he did in the film’s establishing scenes. As the ship sails onward over the endless stretch of ocean, the water and sky seem to become blacker. A storm seems to be on the rise, but no one notices but Braylon. His mood becomes less gracious and more brooding every day, and he begins to retire to his quarters earlier and earlier. One night he is seen smoking over the edge of the boat, gazing into the black abyss of the ocean. A greenish hand touches his shoulder and he turns around. There stands a man in seamen uniform, taught from head to toe. His eyes are like Chip’s several weeks before, deep dark saucers which seem to match the sea in color and depth. Braylon seems just as nervous in this encounter as he was during the one in the bar. The sailor asks him for a light, and he shakingly gives it to him. The sailor begins to ask him about his life, and gets more and more personal until he becomes blunt. He tells Braylon to get off the boat, to jump into the ocean if he must, but to get the hell off the boat. As his talk becomes more vicious, his eyes become deeper and blacker. Suddenly he is in the water. There is blackness all around him, up is down, down is up. Tentacles come from all around him, but he seems so deep in the water that he (and we) can see nothing of their origins. He screams, and water fills his lungs. Suddenly he is lying on board, choking on the water but saved and alright. The crew says they heard him screaming and then a splash, but when he hysterically shouts about the sailor with the holes for eyes they search him suspiciously. They neither heard nor saw any trace of such a creature. Over the course of several weeks his encounters with the abyss-eyed men become more and more frequent and, even more frightening, his close friends and crewmates start to haunt him with the eyes. There begins to be more group encounters, and his life with the ordinary crew and his nightmares with the black-eyed crew become intertwined in a nauseating, surreal storm at sea. It has been several months and the wear and tear of the haunting of the creatures has taken its tole on Braylon. He is jumpy, frail, pale, sick. His writing has stopped; his typewriter lies in the corner of his cabin, covered in dust and cobwebs. And one night, almost expectantly, a soft song bleeds through the air and into the ears of Braylon Reynolds, who is sitting cross legged in the other corner of his cabin. The song awakens something in him, and he ventures out onto the deck of the large ship. He turns to the left and sees the crew, all gape-eyed and staring at him. The song continues, its origin unknown, its tone haunting and distant. The creatures on deck begin to whisper to him softly, “jump, jump”. They tell him to go down there, to venture down to the bottom, where he will find what he is looking for. Braylon, seemingly under a trance, climbs slowly overboard and falls into the water. The creatures sluggishly wander to the edge of the ship and look down at him as he slowly drowns, choking on the pitch-black waters of the Indian Ocean. He sinks down, down. He is consumed. --- The final scene opens in “Chip’s” during a typical Friday night. The crowd is big; the ship has just come in, and sailors are leaking into the pub to celebrate their return. Chip is looks very normal and himself. A man walks in suddenly, very business-like and stark. He tells Chip of Braylon’s suicide at sea, of the way he threw himself into the black waters at night; the way one sailor heard a splash but by the time the crew had gotten to the edge there was nothing, no sight of the man. The man says he is sorry, and leaves. And Chip looks after him as he exits, and on his face there is nothing. End. |
This is a crazy story! Quite unique. Might be a bit slow- but under the right director it might be effective. Perhaps some things could be fleshed out- Braylon's past- what is he writing- how do those things relate to the storyline? There's no reasoning behind why he ends up accepting his fate at the bottom of the sea. I need some motivation... unless the lack of motivation was a choice you made.
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I found this is a surprisingly difficult challenge as the perspective from most novels doesn't really translate onto radio. I was actually thinking of doing World War Z, but Chrono beat me to it. :p
So the next idea that came to mind was for the novel, "The Haunting of Hill House" by Shirley Jackson. Most of you are familiar with this story as it was made into two movies (the first obviously far superior). A doctor, Dr. Montague, has an interest in the paranormal hires two "psychics" to comes to a known haunted house, accompanied by the heir to the house. It's a ghost story that also deals with issues of rationality and mental stability. For the radio broadcast, it would be a series of "found" tapes of Dr. Montague's recordings of his study while in Hill House. It would tell how he came to find the two psychics, Theo and Eleanor and their experiences in the house, including interviews with the caretaker and the heir to the house himself, Luke (who was also present). It would also mark Eleanor descent into madness and her ultimate desire to join with the ghosts of the house. [Sample broadcast to follow in next post.] "It is now Wednesday and I will attempt to describe the events of last night. I'm still unsure if we have indeed come across true paranormal activity or it is all the mind. The mind will often play tricks with you and paranoia can easily take over. Especially in the dark. Last night both Theo and Eleanor were awoken by a strange noise in the hall. It was almost like a banging, which increased in intensity and then abruptly stopped. The women attempted to fall asleep and Eleanor had taken a hold of Theo's hand in comfort. It was only a few hours later when Luke and I heard screaming from their room. Eleanor was hysterical saying that she had thought she held Theo's hand, but Theo was across the room, and it must have been a hand from a ghost or something. We didn't know what think. With Eleanor's past situation of her seclusion prior to coming here, I can only think this is contributing to her mental state. It is day now and we all seems to find solace in the daylight. Though it seems that Eleanor is spending a lot of time engrossed by the statues of the houses original occupants in the solarium. I know there is nothing wrong with looking at statues, but there is just something eerie about the way she looks at Crain's statue, it's almost...lovingly." |
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anyway, here it goes... The Cannibal Club A group of wicked, disturbed but high society people formed a vicious circle to meet their gruesome thirst & hunger for human flesh. Prof. Samuel Simon was the founder member who has been in Africa for his secret research work on cannibalism & managed to brought a man named 'Khalil' from there who works as a Cook for them in their secret place at Daniel's lake house. Daniel Duff is a business man who is also the nephew of Prof. Simon & presidium member of the club and able to recruit the other members like Dr. Martin Moore, the police officer Phillip Peterson, the banker Harvey Hamilton & some others like them. All things were going well like every member was contributing every week to 'manage & collect an item' for the club and at every Saturday night there's been the special dinner where everyone gathered to have a fest for cooked & sliced flesh from a human body! Anyway, the club was running well & in every month there's been some new member willingly or by some other means have joining the club. But suddenly things started to face a gruesome change when every week just before the dinner one by one the members were killing by some unknown maniac killer! The killer is also a cannibal but he likes to have the raw fleshes. Who is this killer? Is he one of them? or an outsider or an ex member of the club like Luther Lewis who has recently escaped from a mental asylum? In the end after all the gore fest between the killer and the 'survivors', it'll be shown that the club still exits but in some other place with some new formation. |
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As far as motivation, I really wanted that aspect of the story to be vague. I think the line between whether he fell under a kind of voodoo trance (I was thinking I Walked With a Zombie at sea) or whether he jumped because something in his mind broke to be fuzzy. |
Thanks NE for the comments.
I wonder if Disease has found the time to do it yet? |
48 Hours are up, and I havent received any PMs or email for extension in time.
8 Finalists have answered their challenges, and I ll request all Judges to send me their Grades. 2 Finalists havent answered within the stipulated time limit, and so face automatic elimination. They will be joined by the Finalist who scores the lowest Grade in this Round. |
Errrr, I just didn't have any time in the past 2 days... Oh well.......
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I assumed that if people didn't submit answers, they would be the only ones eliminated. So much for, this is better than nothing. Oops. :o :( |
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Anyway, rules are rules, so I'm feeling bad about myself...I think this time I'm under great threat. :( |
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