Possible DSLR feature film synopsis - OPINIONS PLEASE!

BenHughesStudios

BenHughesStudios

Member
Hey this is 16 year old developing filmmaker Ben Hughes. I've been thinking about making a full length feature film on a DSLR (probably the Canon t2i with the kit lens and some old Nikons). Here's my idea:

-Time & Space (working title) - Sci-Fi, Action, Drama.

The new school year has just begun, and 16 year old Emma and her best friend Josh made a promise to make this year their best year yet. Emma is going through trouble with school, and her abusive father. Then everything gets worse when Josh is killed in a conflict involving drugs and just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
While recovering from the trauma caused by Josh's death, Emma accidentally discovers a rift in the space time continuum and wakes up 100 years in the past. When she returns to the present, she realizes that she now has the power to be anyWHERE, and anyWHEN. But there are two dilemmas in this amazing feat, she can't control it, and that it steadily gets weaker after each use. Emma gets the idea that she can possibly go back in time to prevent Josh's death. She then runs away from home.
Soon, a team of highly skilled people discover that Emma can travel through Time & Space, so they find her and ask for her assistance, help her discover how this time traveling thingy works, and possibly help Emma prevent Josh's death. This team needs Emma's help to go back in time and put a stop to a group of criminals that are quickly rising and trying to overthrow America's government.

Now Emma and her team must prevent the formation of this criminal group, and prevent Josh's death, before Emma's powers completely vanish and their fates become sealed.

Right now, I'm trying to make this feel really emotional. I really want to incorporate some strong characters into this. I want the Emma to be a strong female character that guys and girls can like. If I had a male in that same position it would probably be way more cliche and less unique. Female action heroes are awesome. I kinda want the same feel as movies like Inception.

What do you guys think? Anything I can improve on? Suggestions? I'm really excited about this. I've been getting mixed feedback that isn't exactly constructive. I'd like to know what I can improve on this.

1 sentance summary:
"After the death of her best friend Josh, 16 year old Emma goes on an adventure through time to prevent his death, and put a stop to a newly rising group of criminals."
 
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BenHughesStudios said:
1 sentance summary:
"After the death of her best friend Josh, 16 year old Emma goes on an adventure through time to prevent his death, and put a stop to a newly rising group of criminals."
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I'd suggest rather than going for the 'feature length' format, that you chunk up your ideas into a series of short films. A short film is something that is 'doable' perhaps each episode can be done in a weekend.

A 'feature' film requires far more, and may become so burdensome that the project is abandoned, or 'fails after all that work'...

If you do the short film format, you will be learning about filmmaking, and if a weekends shoot is a 'loss'... it's only one weekend...
 
BenHughesStudios said:
So you liked the idea then?
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I think you might consider simplifying it a bit, don't try to cram too much narrative into the plotline. A simple story well told. Can you link the criminals to Josh's death? As McKee talks about in his class sw book STORY-- the smaller the circle of influence, the smaller the world, the more you can pull the viewer into the emotions and caring for the protag. Just my opinion. Your protag can jump around in time and space, but be careful covering a criminal mafia enterprise on top of your protag seeing to save Josh's life, etc. Your concept is a bit of a mix of the movie Jumper and The Time Traveler's Wife, could be interesting.
 
Randall_Oelerich said:
Can you link the criminals to Josh's death?

Your concept is a bit of a mix of the movie Jumper and The Time Traveler's Wife, could be interesting.
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Thanks for the words of wisdom!

Yea I see what you mean with the Jumper and Time Traveler's wife thing. I hope my project doesn't seem like a rip off though.
 
In regards to length, I'd write the script first and see how long it comes out. If it's 80 or 90 pages, make a feature next summer. If it's less, do a web series.

I like the concept. Good luck with it!
 
BenHughesStudios said:
... I hope my project doesn't seem like a rip off though.
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There are no original stories, most films are based on previous films, previous stories. As long as you have a unique twist, not a problem.

harry_potter.jpg
 
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I think I have a different take on it - I say, honestly, why not shoot for a feature? You've actually got a lot of things on your side since you're 16 - a large pool of people to work with at your school, and *time* - maybe you'll finish it, maybe not, but...in the end, it doesn't really matter - you'll learn a ton and no matter how it turns out, you'll be 10x better as a filmmaker once you're done with it.

It's much harder to pull a feature together when you're older and everyone has to work 9-5 during the day and you've got to then convince them to go work another 8-10 hours on your film (if you're doing your first on virtually no budget like I am) - a feature will test your determination, there's no doubt about that, and features are tough to pull off - but I think what's most important is that you make what you *want* to make - and if your idea is a feature, and you really, really want to make it - then by all means, go and make it - you're more likely to finish the project, even if its more difficult than a short if it's something you absolutely *need* to make.

You should look at "El Director's" posts on here (Leap movies) - I believe he did a feature when he was not much older than you, and he's now in production on his 3rd - he's inspiring, it absolutely can be done, and he's doing it on the T2i so he might be able to offer you some advice, I've found him very friendly and helpful - I'm working on my first feature now (nearly done shooting) - I'm a little older (30) but I have to say I don't think I would have gotten this far without the help and support of the DVXuser community - this is an amazing place.

Go make your movie my friend!
 
I already felt drawn in by the storyline but once you threw in the whole criminal mafia thing.. I lost interest and it seemed to be bogged down with TOO much. My suggestion? Get rid of the criminals, make it the US Government is trying to learn her secret and is keeping her away from completing the only task she cares about: saving her friend.

I feel drawn to it even more now because its just more adversity to overcome without being too involved.
 
off1c3r said:
Get rid of the criminals, make it the US Government is trying to learn her secret and is keeping her away from completing the only task she cares about: saving her friend.

I feel drawn to it even more now because its just more adversity to overcome without being too involved.
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I really would do that, but I don't have the resources to involve the government into this

Right now I'm already on the script with the gang thing. I'm going to go through several drafts. I'm going to try a new spin on the baddies each time.

Yes, but the main goal is to save her friend.
 
stereotypical characters and tv series ideas(not even modern ones). not exactly a feature.

and it's all over the place, what happened to the story?. is it drama or action you can't just have opposite genres, and you can't "accidentally" make stuff happen more than once and that's pushing it in sci fi.

she accidentally happens to:

be a stereotypical character abused by her father

have a trauma from the death of her boyfriend

discover the time machine/place(that will count as atleast 2, to find something and explain how

something works and be able to use it and the fact that something like that exist)

be found by a group that want to use her or have a time machine/place

too many plot holes, that's just tv written all over it.

sci-fi means only one out of the ordinary or unexplained phenomena, not 100.
 
Amr Rahmy said:
she accidentally happens to:

be a stereotypical character abused by her father

have a trauma from the death of her boyfriend

discover the time machine/place

too many plot holes, that's just tv written all over it.

sci-fi means only one out of the ordinary or unexplained phenomena, not 100.
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There is only 1 out of the ordinary phenomena. and it's that she can time travel. It's an ability, not a machine.

And being abused by her father isn't an accident. IT'S CALLED BACKSTORY.
You can't accidentally be abused by your father. It's something that you're born with.
He's not her boyfriend btw. When someone dies, people become traumatic.

All the pieces fit together.

and the team that helps her control her powers, isn't really a team of experts. It's really just a group of people that she knows that are willing to help her out. Or is it too much of an accident for someone to have friends that help out on a journey?

The only unexplained phenomena is time travel. EVERYTHING else fits into the puzzle, and is explained perfectly well.

It's really not that hard man.

A plot hole is when the plot doesn't work and/or doesn't fit together.
Here everything fits together. Her father is abusive. Her friend is killed. The same people that killed her friend are the main bad guys. she discovers time travel. now she must go back in time to stop the bad guys and therefore preventing his death.

sometimes things don't go as planned. The harder things are for her, the more tension there is in the plot. People can have more than one problem at the same time in real life you know. If someone in real life with an abusive father has a friend die, will you think that's just an accident?

I already know several real people that have been abused sometime in their life, or is that just a coincidence? Give me a break.
 
16 year old Emma Park and her best friend Josh made a deal to make this school year their best year yet. Unfortunately, things don't always go as planned. Emma is in the middle of a crisis involving her abusive father, and things get even worse when Josh is mysteriously murdered by a new and rapidly growing gang. After the death of Josh, Emma goes to mourn at her and Josh's favorite hang out place: the Lake. She starts skipping rocks, and then one rock mysteriously disappears and never makes a final splash. It turns out Emma just discovered a rift in the Space-Time Continuum. So Emma goes out into the water to investigate and then she gets caught in the rift, and everything goes black. She then wakes up in the early 50s in some 50s restaurant. After somehow returning to the present, Emma discovers that she has the ability to go anyWHERE, and anyWHEN. But there are two problems: She can't control it, and her powers steadily weaken after each use.
When Emma realizes that she can travel through Time and Space, she realizes that she can possibly use this power to go back in time and prevent Josh's death.
So Emma meets up with a team of skilled experts to help her figure this all out. They study Emma and Time Travel, and they try to help her learn how to control her abilites.
Emma has another Time Travel spasm, and this time, she and her team find themselves 25 years into the future. The future isn't so good. The same gang that killed Josh grew up to be some of the most incredible criminal masterminds of all time. This gang now runs the entire city, and is gaining control of more and more areas.

Now, the stakes are higher than ever. Emma must learn to control her powers, so she can go back in time to prevent the formation of this gang, therefore preventing Josh's death.
 
I thought you said it wasn't a team of experts that help her control her powers.

It sounds like you have a lot of work to do with the story in order to make everything flow believably. Remember, believability is the key with this type of film. If I were you, I'd watch Back To The Future, and take careful notes about how events flow into each other, how the idea of time travel is brought up, explained, and handled early on, and why things work so well (or don't) in the story.

Good luck. It looks like you've got a start, but a lot of work ahead of you.
 
ah, stuff just happens to work together, i get it now!!.

you think it's normal that the same person will experience everything you made the character go through, stuff just "randomly" happens to him (plot points) for no reason.

even when you change it a bit and make it look like everything is an imagination from frustration or what ever, your making the story much weaker. you can't make a person living with an abusive father and then gets traumatized by the death of someone else, it's either the character already grew stronger from the life he was living, or a character that did not experience physiological pain before went through a tough experience.

you can't make the same character stronger at first then weaker in the middle of the story all of a sudden "to make room" for the resolution and the story development.

the story was not strong to begin with, it started like a dozen sci fi tv shows, you don't have to water down the story anymore.

you can start fresh with a new idea instead of copying tv shows.
 
Amr Rahmy said:
you can't make the same character stronger at first then weaker in the middle of the story all of a sudden "to make room" for the resolution and the story development.

the story was not strong to begin with, it started like a dozen sci fi tv shows, you don't have to water down the story anymore.

you can start fresh with a new idea instead of copying tv shows.
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You can't make the same character stronger at first then weaker in the middle of the story? That's something called "Complicating the problem". Ever heard of that?

I can't believe you find it random for someone to have more than one problem going on in their life at the same time. Have you ever been in the real world before? PEOPLE DO HAVE MANY PROBLEMS GOING ON IN THEIR LIFE AT THE SAME TIME. It's a common thing in the real world.

And tell me what TV show involves a girl going back in time to save her friend from being killed?
 
Dude, I checked out you're youtube. For a 16 year old, I'm impressed man! At 16 I was still playing with VHS and tape to tape editing. You're shooting HD, editing on a computer, and adding effects/grading. You're way ahead of where I was! I say go shoot the movie. Maybe it turns out well, maybe it doesn't. But you will have finished a movie (something many people can't say) and you will have learned so much that your second will be that much better. Keep it up!
 
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