Remember the ideas I had for my forthcoming short film, set out a couple of posts ago? Well, you can now forget them all, because they’ve been replaced by something that I think could be even more promising. The new idea was devised in a haze of desperation, when the clock was ticking down to my first official workshop session and I still didn’t have anything good enough, despite my best efforts. At the eleventh hour, I shut myself away in the library and focused on the method I’d used before, combining locations, objects and mise-en-scene to find something I could work with. I wrote down a number of throwaway suggestions. Most of them were so hopeless that they aren’t even worth mentioning, but just when I thought all hope was lost, there was a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. It came in the form of a single line: “man rides quad bike through hotel foyer/lobby?”

This image definitely piqued my interest. In order to have someone pull such a dramatic stunt in a place like that (and I’d envisioned it as a posh hotel), there has to be both a major reason and major consequences. He certainly wouldn’t have a job afterwards! From these thoughts, the rest of the story began to grow, and after a couple of workshops with our tutor, this is what I have. My protagonist, a porter working at the hotel, will arrive one morning and be immediately hassled by a snobbish and aggressive manager as he carries out several thankless jobs. We will soon learn that this is a regular occurrence which has made the porter feel belittled and demotivated, and has eroded his confidence. The story’s inciting incident will then come when he finds an expensive watch lying on the carpet, unseen by his manager. Intrigued, he takes it to reception and is told it belongs to an elderly lady who arrived the previous day.

When he reaches her room, he attempts to return the watch, only for the lady to immediately reply that the watch has been stolen from a local jeweller’s. The porter is stunned as she explains that the theft is among the things she has written on a list of risks she wishes to take, as she feels her life has become stale in old age. Throughout this interaction, she demonstrates a clear mischievous streak in defiance of her years, and gradually inspires the porter to take a risk of his own. Inspired by his hatred of his job and manager, he decides to tender his resignation in the most chaotic way possible. That’s where the quad bike sequence comes in!

There’s still some more development to come before I commit the story to a script, but at this point it seems to be shaping up well. What I have to do next is a step outline, which will break down the idea a little bit more, and then I can start the screenplay itself ahead of its due date on 22 December. I’m definitely confident about both. It’s much easier to feel that way when you’ve got an idea that’s developed more naturally, rather than one you’ve forced – even though I forced myself to come up with it in the first place…

Mason