The Balance

I'm writing a short script (again) and if I may, I'd like to use this blog as a kind of sounding board. I want to run some of the ideas by myself, throw them up here, see how it looks once it's in the public eye. This is me scribbling, this is me running off at the mouth, this is me thinking out loud.

The film will be called The Balance. It is, mainly, a horror film. I think it is also a domestic drama. Think Scenes from a Marriage meets Last House on the Left. Okay, that's a very glib comment - it's not really anything like either of those films. Certainly nothing like their plots. The film is quite an emotional one, and a lot more personal to me than the original idea. I've transformed it as I've developed the outline, infused it with myself. Of course - that's what I'd always want to do.

My main concern this morning, as I move from my outline into filling things out with dialogue, is that I've not got enough time, enough room in the story, to really create fear and suspense in the audience's mind. The film is going to be around ten minutes long, the element of fear only entering the picture after at least three minutes - maybe closer to the five minute mark. Is five minutes long enough to generate a feeling of unease and suspense? Can I make a mark on an audience in the last three minutes or so?

I'm going to perform an experiment. I'm going to search for short horror films online. I'm going to find the shortest ones that I can. If I can find one in five minutes that has any measure of success - or at least, can't have it's failure blamed on it's brevity - then I'll know that I can cover all of the emotional ground I need to in the ten minute running time that I have.

If you have made a short horror film, please point me towards it. Similarly, are there any you've seen on your travels? I want to see them too.

I have two actors in mind, for two of the three parts. One of the actors I would love to go ahead and cast, the other - I'm not so sure about. But he has been in my mind as I write - involuntarily so. I would hope that he could play the role, but I'm not quite sure.

The other actor though, the one I'm set on, he's done me proud twice before. There's no way I won't be asking him to take the part. How dejected I will feel if he turns it down.

The third part is a female role, and she is the main character. I've not really convinced myself of her on paper yet, let alone in terms of casting. That's my next task, I guess, to really bring her to life (oh - after the plugging through the horror shorts).

If I don't believe in my characters, why should anybody else?

I'm going to come back to this film here, and post more. "Dear diary..." style. I'll probably even premiere the finished thing on these pages.

This has been helpful.