Having a revision of a final story is kind of contradictory, but I can roll with it.
This revision has some changes to the setting as well as some tweaks in the antagonist characters.
A young boy walks to the entrance of a weathered old house and knocks on the door -- an old man answers, welcoming him in. As the boy enters, he spies an arrangement of various statues littered around the home. Animals, people, and the like; He thinks to himself that the man must be a sculptor. He pulls a letter from his pouch and presents it to the man. The man opens the letter and reads it over slowly, a slight grin coming over his face as he drops the letter onto a pile of letters on a desk. As the man reads the message to himself, the boy spots a sad-looking chicken in a cage. The man then claims that he has a tip for the boy and leaves upstairs to retrieve it, leaving the boy alone with the caged bird.
As soon as the man is out of sight, the bird coaxes the boy over to its cage. It motions for him to free it, trying to show clearly that it has been mistreated by the man. The boy is quick to feel sorry for the bird, and begins to find a way to release it from its cage. The bird motions to the large padlock on the door of the cage, and that the key hangs around the neck of one of the statues in the room. The boy grabs the key, unlocks the cage and the bird jumps to the ground. He makes his way for the door to let the bird escape but as he reaches the door, he turns around to see the bird jump on a small lever, dropping a large cage down around him. As the boy stands to assess the situation, he's greeted by the man overshadowing him, with the bird staring at him knowingly at the man's side; he's been duped! The boy frantically begins to look around and sees statues of terrified men, women and children, some wearing mail delivery uniforms. Near his feet, he also discovers the very letter he delivered to the man. He picks it up and looks at it, discovering the only contents to be a small photograph of HIMSELF taped to the letter. As he realizes this, he looks up to see the man throw a handful of strange powder on him. He sneezes, and staggers back for a moment, only to see himself quickly turn to stone. A blank expression comes over his face as the effect washes over his entire body, leaving him frozen in stone.
[fade out]
[fade in]
Another postman enters the property and walks towards the house, passing the the statue of the young boy. He knocks on the door and is welcomed in by the old man.
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Just a couple questions I want to ask the people reading over this for comments so I can get a little more feedback than the usual "keep up the good work!".
- Is it coherent? I have a bad habit of visualizing things in my head but not really putting it out coherently on paper. I want to make sure everything is explained in a way that makes sense.
- Does the part with the letter tie into the story well enough? I have plans to visually represent it a little better in the setting, but I still have my doubts that I've done enough with it, or dealt with it in the right way.
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3 comments:
I think that everything is clear, I didn't have any troubles fallowing along.
just a couple of questions though.
1. How do you plan to show the change into stone?
2. You might want to think about all thoes statues again because that will be a lot of modeling. It can probably be done I'm just pointing out that that will be quite a bit of work.
Story sounds good though, I like it.
I was talking with Tom and he wondered if the letter was necessary. What if the story opens and the boy is running? He's being chased by the old man, and he sees the exit in sight and he's heading toward it as fast as he can... when all the sudden, he spots the bird in the cage. He thinks quickly, doubles back and frees the bird, then turns toward the exit, only to be betrayed by the bird (who is in cahoots with the old man). The rest of the story then plays out as you've written it here.
The above suggestion stages the story in a different way: you reveal the same things to the audience, but with more action and less straight exposition. The trade-off for the increased energy is that you lose some of that nervous tension present in your version (the audience agonizes, "Will the old man come down the stairs and catch the boy before they can leave the house?"). As to the inevitable question, "Why is he in the house in the first place?", perhaps the boy is just really curious and wants to explore the old guy's grand, mysterious house and/or property. Surely a dude who turns people into stone has at least 1-2 local legends told about him. (This justification removes the need for the letter, if you go this route -- it's just an alternative suggestion, of course).
An optional twist on that suggestion is to have the bird escape, but the boy is caught by the old man. You could then have the bird come back and somehow rescue the boy or something... IF you wanted that kind of message, which I don't think you do.
That's actually what I'm most interested in, actually. Your story is very coherent, and you have a solid narrative structure here, but after reading it through twice, I'm not sure what your theme is. What do you want to say with your film? Is it an irony type thing, with the emphasis on the shock ending? Or do you want the audience to walk away with something else in their heads?
the story sounds pretty great. one of the few stories that has everything tie together nicely. i also like that its bizarre. i can imagine that the scenery will have a lot of nice textures seeing as how everything is run down. sounds like a lot of work involved with the story though. i hope to see it all work out. as for your questions. your story description is coherent, i had no problem following it. the letter also ties into the story well.
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