Here’s the first draft of my script Shut-In. >Shut-Out<
Its still a tad too long, will work on shortening the screenplay in the next draft.

I went to the premise of suicide as Sebastian suggested, a man who has lost everything and still decided to give one last try at living. Though I will probably not dabble in the elderly as explained below.

Death by Wrist Slashing
I did a little research on death by wrist slashing and found out that it is more than just letting your blood flow till death’s door. To get a sufficient blood flow, one has to dig really deep into the wrist to reach sufficient blood streams as the main one on the wrist is not sufficient, a deep, approximately 6-8″ gash. Even so, it will probably take half an hour or so to bleed unconscious. Not stating the fact that to get a deep enough wound, one would sever a few tendons in the process, possibly rendering a few fingers immobile. It is so painful that most people give up after slicing only one arm. Lying in a warm tub of water helps to loosen the body and increase blood flow greatly. Some interesting facts to note include drinking lots of water in preparation for the “activity”, to increase blood pressure.

A great premise for the story, a slow death, with a large threshold of saving possibilities, sufficient time for regrets.

Tendon Information

8 Steps to slit your wrist

A forum discussion with many interesting opinions

The “Why?”
Also regarding the issue of “why?”, I’m still exploring on the idea of loss. Most real-life examples were actually caused by mental issues. 90% in fact, if which depression is the highest piece of the pie. Depression has over 30 possible causes or mixtures of them.  Other reasons include a fast escape from overwhelming odds (which is also a cause for depression), some because of a philosophical desire to die, while others a victim of mistake (for example addiction to oxygen deprivation). Many cases of death in hospitals by suicide deal with mental illness patients and a small fraction deal with loneliness and the unbearable passing of time. For the elderly, its a combination of both, as such it’s too complicated to weave a story on this in a short film to introduce such a premise.

I have a friend in charge of lower health status personnel (PES E) in the army and almost every batch there is a suicide case from depression or anxiety disorder and the likes. As such, I believe that any idea for suicide that doesn’t deal with a depraved state of mind will suffice for the story, as long as the main character is still capable of normal thought. What’s more important is his choice to live while at death’s door.

Conclusion
Although he ultimately still dies, one can only imagine the message that the other person has gleaned from the experience. The scene still needs quite a bit of refinement to make the message and dynamics of the story stronger