Story Pitch

Title

The Blur Between

Logline

Turning to lucid dreams to cope with her life and career falling short of her expectations by nightly fantasising about her ideal life, introspective plain-jane TV drama scriptwriter Erica encounters the charming and popular celebrity model-actor Xander at a casting audition for her upcoming script, who turns out to be a manipulative mentalist and power-hungry go-getter, exploiting his charisma and expertise in the ways of subtle hypnosis to achieve his desires. Under his influence and blackmail, will she pursue her inner desires in life instead of leaving them as mere fantasies?

Genre

Psychological Drama

Tone, Look and Style

Dark, cold, urban city-ish, monochrome, high contrast, serious, introspective, psychological, poetic, contemplative

Major Themes

Fantasies, reality, escapism, and the blur between

Silenced inner desires and ambivalence

Limitations of a practical reality

Pursuit of ideal life

Psychological manipulation, hypnosis and ethics

Social influence of the free will

Main Characters

Erica (26):

an introspective, kind and dreamy plain-jane TV drama scriptwriter who is often in her own world, addicted to the pleasures of lucid dreaming about her fantasies and desires as her mundane and struggling real life is not going the way she wants it to.

She is only an average worker who is not much special at work. She is very much seen as a replaceable person at what she does. Therefore she wants to be more significant – to be exact, an accomplished scriptwriter who wins awards and gets recognition from her peers.

As a person who is more introverted and quiet, she desires to be more socially lively, popular  and influential with many more friends and a happening life as opposed to her mundane work-life routine.

She also secretly desires to have an intimate relationship with a boyfriend as she has not dated before, except for once: her ideal type, Shawn, another handsome actor whom she has had to opportunity to work with once, which was enough for her to be swept off her feet and ever since, she has been an infatuated fan of his.

In order to maintain lucidity of her dreams, she keeps a dream journal of her nightly escapades, most of which have to be kept secret from the world as she is embarrassed by some of her inner desires and is afraid of being laughed at. She believes in morals and does not like manipulation.

Xander (28):

a charismatic, handsome and influential celebrity model-actor who is quite successful at what he does, explaining his growing popularity with the media and masses. A cunning mentalist who is skilled in the area of psychology and subtle hypnosis, he is an expert at social interactions, giving him great influence over others whom he interact with.

He used to be a lucid dreamer and therefore knows what a lucid dream journal looks like. Discovering the the contents of Erica’s dream journal, he uses it to blackmail her into doing what he wants. Contrary to Erica who derives her pleasures from what he mockingly deems as a childish “dreamyland”, he believes in being true to one’s own inner desires and should take action and strive to shape reality to fit his desires, all real, physical and tangible instead of just being dreams. He does this even at the expense of exploiting and manipulating others without their knowledge of it. He has a power-hungry side which is impatient and easily frustrated from failures. Thus, he effectively hides these from others to maintain his image and influence as they are fundamental to his abilities as a mentalist and crucial to his pursuit of success.

Story Flow

Erica is in one of her lucid dreams, fantasising about an intimate moment with her ideal boyfriend. She wakes up and records her dreams in the journal before going to work.

At work, she is seen as just an average worker. But fortunately for her, her pitch has been chosen to be made into the next drama.

At the casting auditions for her script, she encounters Xander, who discovers the content of her dream journal. Xander is seen being influential and gaining the support of the other staff of the production. All of them approve of Xander taking up the lead role.

Unlike the rest though, Erica, having done the script so she can work with Shawn again, she is hesitant and does not want to cast Xander. But Xander has a week to change her mind before the cast is fixed. He uses his knowledge of her secret fantasies to blackmail her, revealing that he himself dabbles in the area of psychology as well.

5. TO BE CONTINUED

> Xander’s true motive, upon discovering she is into psychology too, is to gain her favour, influence and teach her how to hypnotise others and then hypnotise her to hypnotise others for him in his grand scheme.

Logline and Story Idea

This story idea is my attempt at writing a heartwarming story about familial reconciliation, stepping up to responsibility, and a renewed unity after a tragedy.

Tentative Title:

The Elder Brother

Logline:

In an unfortunate accident that claims the life of a mother, the responsibility to take charge of the family falls onto the shoulders of the eldest son, who has to put aside his contempt for parents and siblings and make great changes to his life, including curbing his addiction to video games and going to work, to keep the family from falling apart.

Background Information:

Aaron Chua, now 21, is the eldest son among his siblings from a lower income family and did badly in school during his teenage years as he is not someone who is academically inclined. Unable to meet his mother’s academic expectations, she sees and treats him as a great disappointment. As a result, he shares a cold, conflict-ridden relationship with her.

Throughout the years, unable to meet his mother’s expectations, he sank into a state of inferiority, spending most of his life in his room playing games as a means to escape from his unpleasant reality. That only served to worsen his relationship with her, as she laments that he does not contribute to the family, and that he is useless.

On top of all of these, he also detests his mother for favouring his younger siblings, his brother Adrian, 17, and his sister Amelia, 14, over him as they do better in school. He sees his siblings with jealousy and contempt. His brother, influenced by his mother’s constant nagging at Aaron, also develops the impression that his elder brother is nothing more than a loser who wastes his life in his own room only playing games.

Aaron also dearly misses his late father who passed away when he was 6, with whom he shares fond memories with.

Plot:

Introduction / Establishment

  • Flashback of Aaron’s happy childhood with his late father, then his unpleasant past with his mother, his jealousy of his siblings as they get to have birthday celebrations but he does not, as well as revealing his addiction to games.
  • Narration at present time as he is playing games in his room: “My mother passed away last week. I didn’t shed a tear. But I’m not surprised.”
  • Interactions with his brother show that Aaron does not have his brother’s respect. eg. calls him rudely by name.

Inciting Incident

  • Their aunt becomes their guardian, but can’t provide and can’t always be present at their home to look after them.
  • She tells them that after their mother’s funeral, there is not much money left behind by their mother.
  • It is revealed that Aaron hasn’t worked much before, and spent all his NS allowance on gaming equipment.

Reluctance

  • His aunt tries to persuade him to work to support the family, but Aaron refuses because he feels that his siblings have always been the fortunate ones, having everything as they were favoured by their mother and it is unfair to him to still have to work for their sake.
  • It is also because he has not worked much before, and is afraid of the difficulties he may encounter working due to his inferiority complex.

Escalation to Turning Point

  • A few days later, Amelia needs to get a new calculator for school. At home, she tells Adrian instead of Aaron who is distant. Adrian gives her his own money despite having little to spare for himself and tells her that he will make do with less food.
  • Aaron hears all of this from his own room, and crumbles at his self- disappointment and guilt for the lack of responsibility as the eldest son.
  • Wallowing in his own disappointment, he remembers a long forgotten promise he made to his father before he passed on. His father told him that he is the man of the family and he will have to take care of his siblings.
  • He finally decides that it is the right decision to go and work, but without telling anyone as he doesn’t talk to his siblings often.

Progress

  • Montage format showing the following:
  • Aaron wakes up and leaves house very early.
  • He encounters many difficulties at different part time jobs (being scolded often for doing wrong things due to lack of experience, eating cup noodles between breaks, always in a hurry)
  • He always arrive home very tired.
  • Adrian and Amelia get increasingly puzzled at Aaron’s unusual behaviour as he normally rarely goes out.

Climax

  • One morning, Aaron is seen placing money onto the dining table along with two notes for each sibling.
  • Both siblings exit from their room to see Aaron leaving the house and then discover the notes and money on the dining table.

Resolution

  • At night, Aaron finishes work and returns home. As he unlocks the house door and opens it, he is surprised by his siblings.
  • With Amelia holding a slice of cake with a lit candle on top, Adrian and Amelia begin to sing Aaron a birthday song as it is his birthday, which even he forgot himself as he has been caught up with work.
  • Amelia and Adrian smilingly acknowledge him with respect by addressing as “Kor”.
  • Aaron is overwhelmed by the surprise and does not know how to react except to run into his room. Inside, he sobs uncontrollably. Tears of happiness.