Concept Worksheet 4 - Midnight Coffee

Short Film – 20 minutes – for festivals

Story Statement: After driving for hours to visit his dying mother, Tim stops for a cup of coffee and finds himself trying to drive a pregnant woman to the hospital without passing out.

Visual Style: Dark, with a lot of fantasy sequences/hallucinations.

Story: An older, grizzled mountain man has been driving his Camaro across the desert for almost 20 hours straight. His mother is on her deathbed, and he is trying to get to her before she goes. It is late at night, and the strain is beginning to get to him. He starts having trouble staying awake, so he decides to pull into a fast-food place to get some coffee. He goes through the drive-thru line, but when he pulls up to the speaker something is wrong. He hears the sound of some sort of fight through the speaker. Suddenly a pregnant woman runs out of the restaurant, screaming. She runs down the road. Then several police cars pull up, and the police run into the building. He drives away, still very tired.

As he drives down the road, he sees the pregnant woman. He drives past her. He watches her in his rearview mirror. She suddenly clutches her stomach and collapses. The man stops his car, then reverses it to the pregnant woman. He opens the door, and asks if she needs any help. She is Hispanic, and does not speak much English, but he understands the words hospital and baby. He helps her in the backseat, and drives off.

Unfortunately for him and her, the hospital is across town. He struggles to stay awake as the woman screams and yells at him. He eventually begins to hallucinate, and almost falls asleep at the wheel. After almost crashing his car, he decides that he needs some coffee in order to make it to the hospital. Against the protests of the young woman, he pulls into a parking lot and runs into the coffee shop.

Inside the coffee shop the employees are all closing down the store. The man orders the strongest coffee they have, but the barista refuses to make it for him. They argue for a bit, and eventually the man pulls a gun on the barista. Under threats of death, the barista quickly makes a cup of coffee for the man. The man takes and chugs it in one gulp, throws away the cup, then pays the barista. Refreshed, he runs back into the car where the young woman is struggling with her baby. They drive off.

They make it to the hospital with seconds to spare. The woman goes into the emergency room, and the man collapses into a chair and falls asleep. When he wakes up, he learns his mother passed away, and that the young woman successfully had a healthy baby.

Audience Appeal: Will be both funny and thrilling. Everyone can relate to being really tired while also having to do something.

Fresh Eyes: The Power of an Audience

When coming up with an idea for a movie, and then making that movie, I think it is important to remember that I am not unique. There are many other people with life experiences that are very similar to mine, and therefore they probably have similar tastes as me. I make movies that I think I would like to watch. At the same time, one of the great things about film is that it is a collaborative medium, and movies rarely conform to only one person's viewpoints.

Instant Story - Midnight Coffee

An older, grizzled mountain man has been driving his Camaro across the desert for almost 20 hours straight. His mother is on her deathbed, and he is trying to get to her before she goes. It is late at night, and the strain is beginning to get to him. He starts having trouble staying awake, so he decides to pull into a fast-food place to get some coffee. He goes through the drive-thru line, but when he pulls up to the speaker something is wrong. He hears the sound of some sort of fight through the speaker. Suddenly a pregnant woman runs out of the restaurant, screaming. She runs down the road. Then several police cars pull up, and the police run into the building. He drives away, still very tired.

As he drives down the road, he sees the pregnant woman. He drives past her. He watches her in his rearview mirror. She suddenly clutches her stomach and collapses. The man stops his car, then reverses it to the pregnant woman. He opens the door, and asks if she needs any help. She is Hispanic, and does not speak much English, but he understands the words hospital and baby. He helps her in the backseat, and drives off.

Unfortunately for him and her, the hospital is across town. He struggles to stay awake as the woman screams and yells at him. He eventually begins to hallucinate, and almost falls asleep at the wheel. After almost crashing his car, he decides that he needs some coffee in order to make it to the hospital. Against the protests of the young woman, he pulls into a parking lot and runs into the coffee shop.

Inside the coffee shop the employees are all closing down the store. The man orders the strongest coffee they have, but the barista refuses to make it for him. They argue for a bit, and eventually the man pulls a gun on the barista. Under threats of death, the barista quickly makes a cup of coffee for the man. The man takes and chugs it in one gulp, throws away the cup, then pays the barista. Refreshed, he runs back into the car where the young woman is struggling with her baby. They drive off.


They make it to the hospital with seconds to spare. The woman goes into the emergency room, and the man collapses into a chair and falls asleep. When he wakes up, he learns his mother passed away, and that the young woman successfully had a healthy baby.

Observed Moments in Photographs - Geisha Vengeance

Observational Notebook - Two People Makin' Out

We are at a party.
Everyone is sitting around talking, drinking.
Except for two people.
Two people, a guy and a girl, are dancing in the corner.
What they are doing can only be called dirty dancing.
(No one else is dancing, by the way)
It's really awkward,
but most are too drunk to notice.

Concept Worksheet 3 - Geisha Vengeance

Feature-Length: 60-90 minutes

Story Statement: A young woman attempts to kill a gang leader responsible for the death of her lover. It does not go as planned.

Visual Look: High contrast, dark saturated colors; complicated camera movements

Narrative Outline: We begin the film in a lavish room in a large and heavily guarded complex. A gang leader is sitting at a table, surrounded by guards. A man is kneeling before him, a gun to his head. He is about to be executed for failure to pay back debts. As he pleads for his life, the gang leader orders his dinner be brought to him. A young girl dressed in a geisha outfit brings out a large platter of food. As she sets it down, though, she accidentally spills the leader's drink. He slaps her, and one of his guards takes her out of the room.

The guard leads her through the hallways of the complex. Suddenly, when they are out of site, she pulls out a knife she had swiped earlier from the tray, and she slashes the guards throat. Then she pulls out a small device hidden inside her dress. She activates it.

Back in the lavish room, the gang boss begins to dig into his chicken. He realizes that there is a bomb inside the chicken.

The girl runs through the halls. An explosion rocks the building. Gunfire can be heard erupting from the room. The girl manages to avoid the guards as they all run towards the central room. She escapes out a back door. The gunfire stops. She is almost away, when the main doors to the complex fly open. The gang leader is standing there, disfigured, covered in blood, but still standing. He chases her down and grabs her, leading her off into the woods.

They walk through the woods. The gang leader explains that just before the bomb went off, he was able to dive behind a wall, saving him from most of the blast. However, in the ensuing confusion, all of his guards turned on him, and tried to kill him. His only loyal guards were killed in the gunfight, but he was able to escape. He apologizes for hitting her, and laughs as he says that she is the only person he can trust, because she is the only person in the organization that he hasn't wronged in a meaningful way.

They stop at a creek so he can wash the blood off his face. He sets his gun down next to him. The girl tries to take the gun, but the gang leader picks it up again before she can. As he turns around to look at her, he realizes that her makeup has been started to come off because of all the sweat from her running. We now see that there is a large scar across her cheek.

Flashback to several years before. The gang leader is torturing a young boy who had wronged him. The girl is hiding in a closet, watching. The leader kills the boy, then notices the girl. He tries to kill her too, but she is able to escape. However, the leader cuts a large gash into her cheek.

Present day: the girl realizes that her scar is showing. The gang leader puts it all together in his mind. He points the gun at the girl's head. There is a loud bang, and a hole appears in the gang leader's head. He slumps to the ground. Behind him is standing the man who was going to be executed, holding a smoking gun.

Audience Connection: Everyone can relate to the desire for revenge, though the film is about how revenge is usually more complicated than we think. Also, the film should be suspenseful and thrilling.

Concept Worksheet 2 - Danger in the Air

Short live-action film for festivals/web, to be used as basis for feature

20 minutes

Visual Look: Claustrophobic, dark, interspersed with sprawling beautiful wide aerial shots.

Story Statement: A pilot for a skydiving service realizes his passengers are terrorists planning on dropping a weapon on a large city, and he is the only one who can stop them. Die Hard on a plane.

Narrative Outline: Tim, a former navy pilot, is hired by a group of seemingly wealthy thrill-seekers to fly them over LA so that they can skydive into the city center. Tim needs the money, so he agrees to do it. The group acts odd though, and Tim suspects that something is up. After he has taken off, he gets a call over the radio. It is the FBI, and they suspect that the group is made up of terrorists planning on dropping a bomb into LA. They tell Tim to try to land at a nearby airstrip. Tim attempts to change course without the terrorists noticing. They catch on, and threaten him with death if he does not return to the original course. He is able to use his navy training to subdue all but one of them. The final terrorist reveals that they were not going to drop an actual bomb on the city; instead, they were going to infect themselves with a deadly and highly contagious virus and drop themselves into the city. Then he sticks a syringe into his arm and falls out of the plane into a small town below.

Audience Connection: If done right, it should be a thrilling, suspenseful 20 minutes. Also, most people can relate with having an important task that must be done quickly, and having no idea how to do that task.