New Short Story Idea #5

Working Title: "I Am a Professional"

Genre: Mainstream?

Main Characters: Anne, the local medical examiner. Short in stature, and in her forties, she tends to take things solemnly to the point of seeming ambivalent.

A.S., an assassin-for-hire. Although he's not universally attractive, he is a bit of a charmer and tends to communicate with clients and others alike with cordiality.

Yvette, a funeral singer. She's rather thick but tall enough to even it out. She and her group have sung at many funerals, but she only seems immune to the sorrow until she's out of the building.
Herbert, the victim and the epitome of a good Christian man. Those who knew him can't fathom why anyone would murder him. (There was a logical, if heartless, reason for his murder.)

Setting: Modern-day, somewhere in America. All takes place in the same town, aside from perhaps a few musings from A.S.

Plot: Anne, A.S., and Yvette reflect on the meaning of professionality in the face of such a tragedy. Anne is trying to help solve the homicide case; A.S. is clearing the area; Yvette is waiting through the eulogies for her second round of songs at the end of the funeral.

Point of View: Third-person, limited to each of the main three in different sections.

New Short Film Idea #2

I never thought this post would happen, but I suppose inspiration just shows itself however it pleases. This is a bit odd, but still nothing compared to some of the short films I've seen.

Working Title: Clear

Genre: Mainstream/Spiritual, I guess

Characters: No more of the main character (a female in her late teens or early twenties) is shown than her hand.

Setting: The camera remains locked on a graphing calculator (probably a TI-84 or some such thing) that rests on a desk. It's an overhead shot so that all of the buttons and symbols on the screen can be made out.

Plot: The film opens with a shot of the calculator, its screen blank aside from a blinking cursor in the upper left. A female hand appears and begins to punch the proper buttons so that words appear on the screen (a time lapse would probably need to be used for these parts, because this takes forever). Each line ends with a press of the Enter button. After a few lines of positive/neutral words ("JOY," "WORK," etc.), some negative words start to creep in concerning bad acts of hers. The hand types out these words with increasing agitation until it finally hits the Clear button. After a moment's hesitation, the hand presses 2nd+Enter to find the negative words are still in the calculator, and she quickly presses Clear again. This process repeats, with a varying number of 2nd+Enter presses to bring up every line of the bad words, and then ends with her frantically and hopeless pushing the Clear button after it has taken everything off the screen. Timidly, she tries 2nd+Enter again, but the last line of negative words comes up again, and her hand drops to the side of the calculator in despair.
At that point, a masculine hand with stigmata reaches over and presses the proper buttons to clear the calculator's memory. Guiding the woman's hand back to the calculator, he has her try pressing 2nd+Enter again. Nothing comes up.

New Short Film Idea #1

I write stories. I do not write scripts or film videos. Still, film (or maybe theatre) seems like the best medium for this little idea, so short film it is.

Working Title: Roses

Genre: Romance/Mainstream

Characters: A man and his wife. They've been married for some amount of time and have a young son.

Setting: Modern-day. Everything takes place at various times in front of a kitchen counter with a vase of roses.

Plot: For Valentine's Day, the husband buys his wife a nice vase of flowers. She's delighted, and they discuss a nice steakhouse for dinner before leaving. Various other occasions where they chat here are shown, with their conversations becoming less "romantic" and more normal as time goes on and the flowers wilt a bit. Eventually we show a few small fights, and the husband storms out, leaving the wife to water the flowers and note their state wistfully. Eventually life catches up fully, and she no longer waters or notices the flowers. The fights get progressively worse, and tears are shed. The wife finally disposes of the flowers in disgust. A few days pass where the couple doesn't exchange words at all. In the kitchen by himself, the husband notices the empty vase and takes it, exiting the house. The next day, the wife enters the kitchen to find a fresh set of flowers on the counter and smiles.

Anyone interested is free to take this one. Also feel free to change the ending. I felt like it should end sort of happily, but what I came up with seems too forced. That's what I get for trying a condensed romance idea, ha.