Idea 1
Wei Jie, a young, teenage boy is in his room. His hands are trembling as he attempts to put on his clothing. Sweat beading down his pale, frightened face. His sister Xin Ting, calls out to him from the living room, prompting him to hurry up. Wei Jie leaves the room and heads out the house with Xin Ting.
They arrive at a night market (Pasar Malam). The siblings are enjoying each others’s company and they are have having fun. The brother starts to notice some bruises on the arm of the sister. He spots a few more on her leg. Wei Jie asks his sister where the bruises came from. Xin Ting actively tries to avoid answering the question. Wei Jie got annoyed by the sister’s attempts to avoid the question. He confronts her sternly and asks if the bruises came from their father. Xin Ting does not reply she simply looks down with sadness on her face.
Wei Jie is now back in his room at home. He strips off his shirt and slumps down onto the floor. His knees buckling under his weight. He stares at the closed door with a blank expression. Tears starts to well up in his eyes. He bursts into violent fits of tears. Slowly, his cries transitions into a slight smirk and then a hysterical laugh.
The camera tracks away from Wei Jie to reveal a hand slumped over the edge of the bed. Blood dripping down the hand into a pool on the floor.
Idea 2
Story of a guy who has the habit of writing into his journal daily. One day he notices that there is a new entry in his journal which he did not write. The journal entry calls for his attention and warns him of some sort of impending danger. He simply ignores the entry, thinking that someone must have gotten hold of his journal and tried to play a prank on him.
Over time, the journal entry starts to get increasingly personal, stating very personal facts about the main character in an attempt to convince him . He figures that every night, someone comes into his room and tampers with his notebook. The decides to lock the journal into a safe. The next morning, he opens up the safe and realises that the book is no longer in the safe but on his table. The journal is spread open with the words “you have to trust me” scribbled over 2 pages. He realises that the person is another version of himself ( like a split personality). He flips through the pages and realise that the entries that were written by the other version of him contains a set of instructions that would lead him to a location. (I have to figure out the significance of the location)
When he goes back home, he goes to bed. At night, we see that the pages that were written by the other version of him were all torn away.
Idea 3
John is waiting for a bus at a rather isolated bus stop. The seat is occupied by a mysterious man. The mysterious man stands up and gives John his seat. John was perplexed by his gesture but sits down out of courtesy. Immediately, he shuffles away quickly. After walking for a distance, the man stops, sighs and turns back. He approaches John and explains to him that anyone who sits on the chair would be framed for a murder that just happened. (for a reason I have not yet figures out) He can’t leave the chair unless he finds someone to take his place on the chair.
The mysterious man walks away from John who is left to figure out how to save himself.
All the ideas seems very interesting, I particularly like the third one and feels that there’s a great potential to the story. But I feel like the story is going to be quite long. Would love to see how you’re going to portray the scene, and the conversation between the two guy.
I really like the second and third idea!
I think the idea of a journal is a very interesting concept. Using something so personal like a journal makes it a very personal struggle. Something that only he can deal with alone. and i think that in itself is very intriguing as it is a sort of self discovery for the main character as the story progresses.
The third idea is insanely intriguing to me even though its very short, kinda like a trailer. Its a simple concept but it has alot of underlying plots that can play out. If this was an actual trailer for a thriller movie, i would be one of the first in line to watch it haha
All very intense stories, with potential to become gripping thrillers haha. A concern I would have with all three is that the performance of the actors (and actually production value also but I did see your first sem project and you should have no problem ahaha) will really make or break the believability of the story, so casting is something that should maybe be considered before developing the story. The first one has also the added complication of making it believable that someone would and could kill their own father. The other two reminds me of certain horror stories so maybe you could refer to them to see whether the character/plot twists/whatever other elements could work for you 🙂
For story 2. https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/381xvq/my_friend_from_an_insane_asylum_just_called_me/
For story 3.
http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/The_Cell_Phone_Game
This seems like it’s quite far away from your chair theory but this story has elements of like sabotage and self-interest of the characters so maybe something in there is relevant!
Well crafted story structure! It all sounds exciting! The scenes are great just from the writing itself. Really look forward to seeing this narrative come onto screen. All the best! Will you be willing to teach me how to do films like these too? Really want to find out how people manage to put all the different resources (actors, editing, sounds) together to make a proper narrative film. 🙂
Really liked the second idea and how it feels like there’s an underlying dark theme to it. It reminds me of this American movie where the main character’s father had split personalities and did not realise it. I find that it could perhaps be explored further.
The third idea sounds intriguing, for example, what if (WHAT IF), if I could throw out some ideas, there is a cctv camera filming the scene and the changing of seats have a certain implication behind it. Therefore creating the dilemma the character is in. I’m interested to learn more about it and feel that with more fleshing out of character and situation, it would make for an interesting thriller.