Script

Note that the script is still subject to some change. The medallion thing - I might change this. I'll need to find an object of interest and value to replace it, but for now a medallion will work fine. Parts are fairly loose, so you're welcome to swap roles with someone if you ask me first. But Michael's gonna be Ed. :P

There are six characters altogether.

Bill (Bronson) - A Pinkerton detective in search of the medallion. His name will not be mentioned, so 'Bill' is actually just there for easy reference rather than anything else.

Jonesy (James) - Bill's partner. Another Pinkerton after the same thing.

Big Ed/"Eddy" (Michael) - A mob boss, currently in possession of the medallion.

Maria (Sara) - Ed's girl, secretly after the medallion as well, but for her own greed.

Frank (Blake and Todd) - Refers to both of Ed's goons, so either of them can say the lines etc.

Narration (Bill):
It was a frozen night in winter, the sort of bitter chill that tunnelled under your skin to gnaw at the bone. It had taken me a month to worm my way into Big Ed’s mob, and now he trusted me enough to invite me to his poker night. My job was to reclaim the medallion of Marie Antoinette. Ms Dawson had been awfully upset after it’d been stolen. An heirloom like that must be worth nearly ten grand. It was certainly something Ed didn’t want to leave lying around for all to see. My partner, Jonesy, was up in Ed’s room doing the searching. Once it’d been found we could take it and return the medallion without involving the police. They don’t like Pinkertons around these parts. They don’t even know we’re here. It’d be best to keep it that way.
You can’t trust anyone anymore.


Everyone other than Jonesy is at the table playing poker. Maria is not playing, but flirting with Ed. Have shots of shifty eyes, people holding cards under the table, poker chips, beers, cigars etc. This will need a bit of smoke effects. Alternate with shots of Jonesy sneaking up the driveway, past the window, and into Ed’s room.
Ed: (to Maria) Why don’t you turn in for the night. I’ve got some… business to attend to.
Maria: Mmm, sure darling. Goodnight boys.
Maria smiles and leaves. Bill looks watches her go, then looks down at his cards when he becomes aware he was staring. Ed sees Bill’s look.
Ed: (after Maria has left) Well, I can see we’re all getting pretty tired about now. Why don’t we take a break from the games and have a little chat.
Frank: But boss! I’ve almost got this!
Ed: Oh, I think someone’s almost got this alright, but it ain’t you or me. Tell me, son. Where’d you get so good at cards?
Bill: I uhh, used to know a guy in a casino. He uhh, he had a bit of a habit of playing dirty, counting cards…
Ed: *laughs* Good man!
Bill: He got caught.
Ed: I’m sorry to hear that. But I suppose he got what he deserved.
Frank: Come on, boss! You know we ain’t cheating!
Ed: It’s not the cheating that’s concerning me, it’s the deception. You got a good poker face, don’t you, son?
Bill is undeterred.
Ed: You got a lot of nerve, tryin to put one past me.
Bill: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Ed: (shouting and standing up) You know exactly what I’m talking about! You’re a pink! A private eye, sent to spy on me and then turn me in to the cops! *The goons grab Bill and restrain him* I know what you’re after too. I’m sorry to cause such grief to that young Dawson girl, but this medallion you’ve come for, is mine! And I intend to keep it that way, least till I can get it onto the market. (He sits back down).
Frank: What do you want us to do with him, boss?
Ed: What do we always do with Pinks and Coppers… *sadistic laugh*
A gunshot disrupts the lot.


Maria enters Ed’s room, to find Jonesy hunched over the safe. Jonesy takes the medallion out and admires it. Maria acts seductively, and drags out her words in a playful manner.
Maria: You shouldn’t be here…
Jonesy is startled. He pulls his gun on her.
Maria: Is that any way to treat a lady? I’m not gonna bite.
Jonesy: (Sounding really anxious) Yeah, but your hubby down there ain’t so friendly. I’ve seen what he did to those cops.
Maria: Oh relax, I won’t tell on you. Besides, how could I do such a thing to such a strong, handsome man like you? *she moves toward Jonesy*
Jonesy: *now sounding quietly intimate* I don’t think Ed’d like you talking about someone like that.
Maria: There’s a lot of things Eddy wouldn’t like me to do. Doing them is just part of the fun. *by now she and Jonesy are standing VERY close*
Jonesy: You’re dangerous, you are.
Maria: Oh, I can be so much more than that.
Jonesy: Really?
Maria: I could show you, if you like. It’s cold, and I want someone to hold on to.
Jonesy: Well, I think we can arrange that…
Maria lies atop Jonesy on the bed. It’s implied they’re kissing or whatever. She reaches down to Jonesy’s waist and takes hold of his pistol. Maria sits up – still atop Jonesy – pointing the pistol at him. A seriousness has come about her.
Jonesy: *smiling in that quiet intimacy as before* Is that any way to treat a man?
Maria: *sarcastically* Cute. Hand over the medallion, or I’ll blow your brains out.
Jonesy: *no longer intimate, now cynical* Easy, there. Have you ever fired a gun before?
Maria: I think I can work it out.
Jonesy: Oh really? And what happens when Eddy comes down here to find you lying atop a dead stranger on his bed?
Maria: I’ll be gone by then.
Jonesy: If you want the medallion, you’ll have to shoot me first. I know you’re not gonna do that to a ‘strong, handsome man’ like me.
Maria: *leaning in to Jonesy* Doing it is part of the fun.
Maria fires the pistol. She takes the medallion from Jonesy’s body and heads to the phone.


Back at the poker game.
Ed: Jesus Christ! What the hell was that?!
Frank: Sounded like a gunshot to me, boss.
Ed: Shutup. *to Bill* Did you bring any of your buddies? HUH?!
Bill: *spitting the words at Ed* I came alone.
Ed: *to the Franks* Bring him here!
The goons bring Bill to the other side of the table and bend him lower than Ed. Ed bends down and grabs Bill by the neck.
Ed:*to Bill, in a whispered rage through his teeth* You’d better be telling the truth, boy. Or your head’s going on my trophy wall! *Ed straightens up and shouts at the Franks* Keep an eye on him, and don’t move unless I say so. I’ll be right back. *he heads to his room*

Maria puts the phone down on the receiver. Cut to Ed’s perspective heading down the hallway, gun in hand.
Ed: Maria? …Maria? *Maria appears in the doorway with a gun in her hand* Maria? What do you think you’re doing?
She slams the door shut and pushes the chest in front of it.
Ed: *banging on the door* Maria! Open this door!
Maria: I’ve called the police, Eddy!
Ed: What?! You stupid bitch! Open this door!
Maria: And I’ve taken the medallion, too.
Ed: You…
Maria: The cops sounded real happy to know where the guy who killed off all their buddies lived.
Ed: How dare you… no one’s known about my place for years!
Maria: And now they know everything! What are you gonna do about it, Eddy?
Ed: I’ll kill you, bitch!
A siren is heard in the distance.
Maria: Time’s ticking, Eddy.
Ed pushes the door open in a rage, to find the place overturned, the safe containing the medallion open, and the door leading outside, also open. No sign of Maria. He heads back to the poker game.
Ed: You two take care of Pinky here, don’t let him get his side out to the cops.
Frank: You got it, boss.
Ed: I’m gonna put one in that bitch for good…
Ed leaves, and the goons throw Bill to the ground. They aim their guns at his head.
Frank: It’s a shame your buddy couldn’t hold onto that medallion.
Bill spins round and fights off the goons, knocking them out, and shoots them (either to kill, or to seriously wound – he doesn’t care, isn’t looking). He then chases after Ed. He makes it to the driveway to find Ed lying there dead, and police lights flaring everywhere. He raises his hands.
Cut to black.

Crew, Talent, Locations, and Equipment

Crew
Kristyan Evans Fee - Director, Writer, Cameraman.

Talent
Michael Dunlop - Actor (Big Ed)
Sara Mikdame - Actress (Maria)
Bronson McNaughton - Actor (Detective "Bill")
James McCormick - Actor (Jonesy)
Blake Kennedy - Actor (Frank)
Nick Albers - Actor (Frank)

Locations
My house - Parent's bedroom, hallway, dining area, driveway

Equipment

• Camera (mine - Sony HDR-XR100 series HD camcorder)
• Suits, dress and hats (x5 - fedoras or similar. Suits and dress belong to the actors)
• Guns (x4 - Courtesy of Walter)
• Poker Chips (mine)
• Cards (mine)
• Beer, glasses (x4)
• Various furniture (Table, chest of drawers, safe, phone etc)
• Safe (will use Dad's bedside table with the bed's heat control taped to it)
• A medallion
• Cash.

Treatment and Style

Treatment
It’s nighttime. Narration is heard overhead. We see four men in a dimly lit room playing poker at a table, with poker chips, cards, and beer everywhere. Bill and Ed are on opposite sides of the table, with Bill up against a wall. The Franks sit either side of them. Maria is next to Ed, flirting with him. We see Jonesy walking down a dimly-lit driveway, past the sunroom door, and then sneaking into Ed’s room and starting to search the place. Jonesy notices a safe, and opens it.

At the poker game, Ed asks Maria to leave on account of 'business to take care of'. She leaves, and Bill watches her go. Ed then ends the game to reveal he knows all about Bill and his operation. The goons leap up and restrain Bill, and they discuss the matter of his execution. Maria heads back to Ed’s room, and finds Jonesy has opened the safe. She seduces Jonesy, and using his pistol, kills him. She takes the medallion for herself and calls the police.

Ed becomes paranoid of police enforcements entering his house, and leaves the others to find out what’s happened at the other end of the house. He finds Maria holding a pistol, who is acting suspiciously. Maria slams the bedroom door on Ed, and reveals she’s called the police and that they’ll be there any minute. Ed swears to harm or kill her, and bursts through the door. Maria escapes with the medallion into the night. Ed leaves in a hurry, telling the goons to kill Bill.

Bill fights off the goons, shooting them before leaving. He manages to escape as far as the driveway, where he finds Ed’s corpse on the ground, and armed police aiming right at him. The police are not seen, but strongly implied by the flashing lights. As he raises his hands in a guilty surrender (gun still in hand) the scene fades to black, and the title appears.


Style
I'm aiming for a pessimistic/nihilistic film. It needs to be dark and moody, and envoke anxiety in the audience. I am going to achieve this by colour grading the film to be black-and-white with very minimal lighting, lots of shadows, and having my story twist for the worse of the characters involved. All characters are killed off, other than Bill and Maria, Maria being the antagonist in many ways makes her survival negative. Bill is left to be shot or arrested for crimes he did not commit, which goes with this nihilism. The style is meant to be film noir, so the events need to feel trapping, and the characters need to be as shifty as possible. There should be saxophone music that reflects moodiness, sexuality, and depression. Acting should be aggressive, and there should be a sinister atmosphere. There's a streetlight down our driveway, which looks great at night, so I might use that to give the film a tinge of city/urban style. I'll remove as much of the time inconsistancies as possible, so that the film has a 40s vibe to it, though I know some elements are impossible to change, and so there will be the odd eerie link to the present. Hopefully this will be either unnoticeable or disturbing, rather than irritatingly 'wrong'. I'm aiming for bleak and panicy.

Things I'll do for effects:

• Low angles to make Ed look big and mean.
• High angles on the poker game to show perspective (they will be surrounded by the darkness of the walls and background/floor - nihilism/entrapment).
• A tracking shot of Maria's hand as she takes Jonesy's pistol. This builds suspense and shows an obvious double-crossing, as per the genre.
• First shot of the streetlight, pan down, have Jonesy walk in and stop, looking like a silhouette. Gives him the 'literal identity of a dead man walking', and provides a use of shadow. Looks very moody.
• Edit in a narration with sax music to create a moody atmosphere.
• Cut between Jonesy and the poker game to show they take place concurrently.
• Close-up on people's faces to show emotion - usually serious or angry. When Ed strangles Bill would be a good time to use this.
• Vary angles for smoothness of shot progression (when cutting but keeping the audio going). Also provides interest.
• Have everyone in formal clothing, as per the style of the 1940s - Maria and Bill are the only ones not wearing black (funeral?) - they are also the only ones not to die.
• Setting needs to be messy and full of typical gang stuff. Poker table is very iconic, and will work with chips and cards and possibly alcohol present.
• Vary framing - have some wide angled shots to show the scene (especially when moving from one place to another), but have lots of tight framing when dialogue is being interchanged.
• Loud gunshot sound effects and a lot of blood in gunshots shot. This will show how gritty the film is. It's meant to be serious and dark, and quiet gunshots with minimal blood would look silly. Having said that, subtle is always nice. Might experiment with amount of blood.
• Hand-held effect is realistic and gritty, and this is exaggerated in the shot where Bill runs out of the house, which will be a shaky POV for extra suspense.
• Slow-mo shot of Ed's death, with Bill running out behind him. Very striking, goes with nihilism. It breaks the tension of the faster-paced shots before it. Finish with a static shot of Bill raising his hands, with the police lights flaring everywhere.
• In Jonesy's entrance to the house, I want to have subtle obscurrances. Trees, branches, leaves, parts of the house, etc just slighting obscurring the shot for tension - looks almost as if he's being watched.
• I want another shot of Jonesy post-mortem just for extra realism. Seeing a recurrance of the seduction scene, this time with a disgruntled Ed and deceased Jonesy would be a nice contrast and an video-effect-less way of showing the aftermath of his encounter with Maria.
• Reduce lighting as much as possible for extra noir effect. Increase the shadows and highlights, but keep everything else low-lit. Matches the Noir style and nihilism.
• Set the film at night for the above reason.
• Cut between shots. Transitions look tacky, and I don't like them. I can jump back in time to Maria walking down the hall to make it obvious that the poker game and seduction take place at the same time. The reaction from the gunshot will re-establish this.
• Make sure ambient music and acting match - be serious and consistant with dark theme.

Concept for My Film

Ok, here's my plan for this film opening. The general idea is a sort of 1940s crime film based around a collection of characters with problems. The protagonist, for example, has fallen out of a long relationship and is heartbroken in that respect. He has been betrayed, stood up, burned by the law, and now his partner has been killed. A typical theme of Film Noir is to focus on the criminals themselves rather than society's molding of criminals. Another is to have characters plagued by existential bitterness and broken promises of love.

Title: Maria
Genre: Film Noir
Opening Synopsis: Four gang members play poker at a table. A woman is there flirting with the boss of the men. She leaves, and finds another man has broken in and is snooping around in the house. This man is actually a detective, who has found a priceless heirloom and is attempting to take it back from the mob boss who stole it. The woman seduces and kills this detective, then calls the police to inform them of the location of the notorious mob boss. The poker game gets rough, as it's revealed one of them is actually another detective, working with the one who got killed. As the cops arrive, bent on killing or arresting everyone in the building, the woman escapes, the boss is killed, and the detective left to take the blame for what has happened here.

Full Plot Synopsis: Bill is a Pinkerton agent (the Pinkerton Detective Agency was an American organisation of private investigators who could be hired like freelance workers for detective and security purposes. It is speculated that at its height, the organisation employed more people than the US military, and was a danger of becoming a potentially unstoppable militia force. Riots broke out, the Pinkertons were involved, and as a result, the act of hiring a member of the agency (and the agency itself) was outlawed by the government.) Bill has been asked to recover the medallion of Marie Antoinette (a french consort who was beheaded by the people during the French revolution - famous for the saying "Let them eat cake"). He has taken this case in part because of the money he'd make for completing it, but also because he has learnt of Maria's involvement with the gang leader "Big Ed", whom he knows is behind the robbery and other crimes. Bill and Maria had been in love at one point - due to be married, until one of his undercover investigations fell through, and the gang (himself included) was arrested and deported. He and Maria have never seen each other since. When Bill arrives at Ed's house, Maria is unsettled. She has been a criminal for several years and is secretly the reason behind Bill's previous failiure. She kills Bill's partner Jonesy, and steals the medallion for herself. When Maria leaves at the end of the opening, Bill leaves hastily in order to stop Ed getting to her before he can. The rest of the film would have featured Bill tracking down Maria in order to recover the medallion, but also to convince her to settle down and stop committing crimes. The plot would’ve taken him to Germany, where Maria has escaped to and begun a new life under a false identity. The plot would eventually reveal Maria’s involvement in Bill’s espionage accident (which lead to the entire gang being arrested and deported) and her involvement in the murder of Ms Dawson, the lady who had commissioned the search for her missing heirloom. Bill would have to confront the reality that he could not have a life with Maria, and that she would have to be brought in to justice, though he is reluctant to do so. As the film climaxes, the surviving gang members that used to be under Ed’s control will rise to a violent peak, causing riots in the streets and the deaths of countless law enforcement officials and pinkerton agents. The film ends with Maria’s capture (sentenced to execution during an uprising, just like Marie Antoinette) and the permanent house arrest/parole of Bill for allegedly starting the gang war and indirectly getting all of the detectives and policemen killed. Ideally, this would be a very nihilistic film – it is meant to be depressing, with elements of sex, heartbrake, and violence throughout.

Emotions To Envoke: Anxiety, Excitement, Moodiness/Depression (?)
Principal Ideas: Depression, Double-crossing/Distrust, Danger, Danger of women. (A lot of D's...)
Impact: The audience needs to feel some of the above ideas in this opening. The intro is meant to be fairly bleak, the way Bill narrates with the chime-like music in the background creates a sort of self-reflective atmosphere. The following scene with the poker game bring in the anxiety, as things take a turn for the worse for Bill. The concepts of corruption and death are brought about in the speech, but also when Maria shoots Bill's partner. Maria's seductiveness followed by Jonesy's elimination shows the danger of women - being sexually alluring but also intelligent, scheming, and (to an extent) heartless and manipulating. This again shows the heartbrake and distrust that plays a strong part in Film Noir.