Undergrad Thesis class script idea....NEED HELP

J

JJL

Member
Ok, so I start my undergrad thesis class next week and we need a script by the first class day. This is THE class where you make your "calling card" film...so careful consideration is needed to make sure my script as best as it can be. But here's my idea :

A woman hires a hitman to carry out a stalking/killing on a woman who we find out to be is the same woman who hired him. Confusing i know....but bare with me...Basically its a story about a woman who is an idealist of some sort and frowns upon society's dirty secrets such as the the existence of hitmen, so she foils a scheme (like a cat and mouse game) to beat a hitman at his own game. The hitman hired is completely oblivious to the fact that he is being misled and ends up finding out when its too late that the woman who he is stalking and plans on killing is the same woman who hired him. THe woman who hired him, had led him on a wild goose chase...all the while she had been stalking him without him knowing it. The climax occurs when she reveals herself to him just as the hitman is about to kill her but she ends up killing him.The idea is much like the dark knight = the woman is batman in a sense since she must become the one thing that disgusts her inorder to defeat people like hitmen, but she also is like the joker since she is psychotic and conniving since she is in it for sending society a message not for the sake of killing a person.

So i need help in coming up with creative scenes/scenarios that would help propel my story along. I have the climax and I have the beginning....I just need some help in the middle. Please share with me your thoughts. I appreciate it.
 
Last edited:
Think about the ending. How do you want your story to end-- the woman whacking the hitman, or vice versa, or nobody dies, or they both shoot and kill each other? Know your ending, your beginning, then you can better know how to connect the beginning and ending. Then figure out a midpoint, a point of commitment, no going back. Then figure out a few other key turning points.
 
Last edited:
I want the script to be around 5-7 pages......I plan on the film being perhaps less than 10 min.

I should have been more specific on my ending......the climax I want a scene where she surprises the hitman, and perhaps handicaps him in some way so he is unable to defend himself and as he lays dying (or paralyzed) she explains the purpose of her mission. So basically the woman walks away having killed the hitman.

For the beginning I want to introduce the hitman. He is middle aged and divorced and has recently lost his job. He had retired from being a hitman years ago and during the years he had served as one he was master of his craft. Well he figures he needs to pay the bills and realizes the only immediate way of getting back onto his feet and surviving is to agree to do a job that the woman had seeked him out for (she contacts him and for reasons not mentioned knows he has a history of being a hitman). This is his fatal flaw, which I feel is crucial for developing the story.


But for the middle parts, i was thinking having a scene where the woman pretends she doesnt realize that she is being stalked, perhaps have a park scene where we see her reading a book on a bench or something. And then perhaps another scene where she is in a coffee shop and maybe even has a short conversation with the hitman (again pretending she is oblivious to the fact that he is stalking her).......The main thing I want to point out is the that for the entire length of the film she is playing games with him and leading him on for her own selfish pleasure instead of just killing him quickly.
 
Character Motivation

Character Motivation

I don't think "frowns upon society's dirty secrets" is enough motivation for anyone to do anything. I frown upon commercials before movies but I still sit through them. With out strong motivation and a real goal the audience will feel cheated.

Why would someone truly go through this much effort. A better motivation is revenge. Maybe the hitman killed someone in her family. Maybe she's the child of someone he killed. Those are stronger motivations than, darn society's secrets...lets take out a hitman. Society has worse "dirty secrets"

And she goes against her own motivation anyway. If she kills someone even a hitman she creates the very thing she is against.

So give her a better motivation for trying to pull it off.
 
That would work with the OP's desire to have the hitman now retired-- time has passed, perhaps the woman was a child when the hitman killed someone she loved, now she has found him (perhaps in a Merc magazine or online?), wants revenge as you suggest for a motive.

Opening with action is always good too, or at least opening with something shocking-- either the hitman doing a hit, showing us who he is and what he is capable of; or perhaps the woman flashes to being a little girl and seeing a hitman kill her father/other, and now fate has shown her the hitman so she can plot her revenge.
 
Your story is full of nice reversals, always nice for a story as Aristotle so remarked. =)
An interesting reversal just hit me-- the woman saw the hitman kill someone she loved, now plots to have the hitman stalk her, surprises him, shoots the hitman or at least plans to-- then unexpectedly discovers a little girl, the hitman's little girl, withnessing her hit of the hitman-- she has become the monster she sought revenge on, and has put a little girl in the same situation she was in. Hero's dilemma (always good)-- to kill the hitman, wounding emotionally the hitman's daughter, or not kill the hitman and thus lose her opportunity for revenge which she thinks will help her emotional issues. Damned if she does, damed if she does not-- classic hero's dilemma, you want that in a story if you can do so. Oh well, use or lose, the story will become what it will, as you write it it will take on a life, but outline the classic plot points and you should an easier time then writing the scenes.
 
Last edited:
yeah you're right....I like that, a stronger motivation might be necessary. I like the family member got killed idea, perhaps the hitman had murdered her husband....I could def use something along those lines.

But again, how would I develop the story in between....what scenes can I place in the middle that would be intriguing for the audience? THis is where I'm drawing a blank.....
 
You want to write a cause and effect causal chain of related scenes. Know your ending, then work backwards. What causes the ending, what is the scene just before that that leads to the ending? Then what would cause that scene before the end? What would lead up to the scene before that, then before that. Work backwards, towards your beginning. Remember film time can jump suddenly, not like reality. We do not want to see the hitman stopping for gas, unless that is related to the plot in some necessary way.

Look at a movie you love, think about its ending, then analyze how the scenes work backward, with causal relation. Then do that for your story. It's a short story, so there will not be too many scenes.
 
Thanks Randall, I actually like that idea.....makes sense the way you put it. That just sparked another idea in me, perhaps the scene that caused the hitman to be inside the woman's apartment at the time the woman surprises and finally kills him was the fact that maybe he had left something in her place at a previous break-in and out of frantic desire to prevent the woman from finding out that somebody was in her place he rushes there without being cautious, and since the woman had been "counter-stalking" him, she nails him!
 
Honestly I hate this idea...Sorry but sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind...If this is your calling card you are in trouble.

You must be a smart kid to have gotten into this school...The world does not need another Hit Man movie no matter what the twists are we have seen it all before...Turn your focus to yourself, something personal, find a personal situation that moved you deeply emotionally, to fury, to sorrow, to envy, whatever...Write about something you know about and tell it from your own point of view...If you are honest and yourself it will be weird enough to be percieved as unique and universal enough for an audience to identify.

Write about your freaky mom or sister, brother, father, etc...Some crazy thing that happened to you as a child. Keep it simple and honest and you will blow people away because every other jerk at your school is going to try to emulate Hollywood.

No More Hit Men...Its predictable...And in Art that is the biggest sin of them all.

Cheers,

DogDay.
 
I have to agree with DogDay. Your idea seems to cliche, and yeah you may be able to put your own twist on it, which would make an interesting read, but if this class is as important as you say, then you need something that's going to be unique.
 
I don't think it is a bad story idea, given enough time to fill it out properly. But you are looking at under 10 minutes to tell this story? I think you are going to have to cut too much out to fit the time, and really hurt the plot.
 
DogDay said:
Turn your focus to yourself, something personal, find a personal situation that moved you deeply emotionally, to fury, to sorrow, to envy, whatever...Write about something you know about and tell it from your own point of view...If you are honest and yourself it will be weird enough to be percieved as unique and universal enough for an audience to identify.
Click to expand...

This is a lovely and sage piece of wisdom from DogDay!:beer:

Here is the biggest tip you can get as a filmmaker and writer - Films are about emotion!

People watch films to *feel* something, and yes that is with all movies, including your Arnie, Vin and Willis type blow them up type ones too. Emotion is not a feminine and fluffy thing, there is a broad spectrum to choose from which can be manipulated in different ways, but this *must* be done effectively. Movies that fail to evoke an emotional response in some manner from the audience, also fail to draw people's attention and pull in a profit.

Your work will always be stronger if *you* understand the feelings being conveyed. So, when starting out, it is best to start off with topics you emotionally understand in all their facets and master the representation of those, before branching off into more abstract areas.
 
Well, you are seeing how initial ideas spark new and better ideas. As some others have said here, the basic plot is somewhat cliche, done before, but that is true of most stories. But at least an initial idea can help you morph it into something with a twist, something unique. Or scrap it and do another idea. If you have time, write down 10 story ideas, take a day and just brainstorm ideas, then out of the list of ten find one that really moves you. But as you write and rewrite your idea will almost certainly morph into something significantly different than what you started with, which is a good thing. Let the story take on a life of its own.

JJL said:
Thanks Randall, I actually like that idea.....makes sense the way you put it. That just sparked another idea in me, perhaps the scene that caused the hitman to be inside the woman's apartment at the time the woman surprises and finally kills him was the fact that maybe he had left something in her place at a previous break-in and out of frantic desire to prevent the woman from finding out that somebody was in her place he rushes there without being cautious, and since the woman had been "counter-stalking" him, she nails him!
Click to expand...
 
Maybe he could make the story UNpredictable, fresh? Hitmen movies are still popular-- if with a twist, e.g. The Whole Nine Yards, etc. Maybe this hitman, as I hinted at in an earlier post, has a little child, and what if that child somehow turned out to be the child of the woman's mother, i.e. the hero's sister, so that if the woman kills the hitman she kills an uncle she did not know. Something really messed up, revelations, etc. Jump into the story with the hitman issue, but perhaps quickly turn the story into an emotional journey as some of you are saying, get a confrontation going in the form of dialog, russian stalemate, emotional issues that we did not think would happen when the story started? The story could immediately start with the woman in a dark room waiting for the hitman to come and kill her, we hear the voiceover Morgan Freeman type narration of the woman setting it up (backstory), then the sounds of the hitman sneaking into the house, the tension, then the confrontation, then the dialog, emotional revelations, etc. Just thoughts. =)



But I do agree with you in that if the original poster can find a more personal emotional story that could be something more at heart and more motivating to write and interesting to read.

DogDay said:
Honestly I hate this idea.... No More Hit Men...Its predictable...And in Art that is the biggest sin of them all.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Wow, that would be powerful! And provide a solution to a russian standoff, so that neither wants to kill the other. Or maybe anger wins the day and the woman goes ahead and still kills the hitman after learning he is her father. Several ways to go. Hell of a surprise twist revelation though!

Capt Quirk said:
Better yet, let the little girl grow up and discover her real father is the Hitman?
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top