The Case, rough script

Here is the new revised script for the new film idea. It is a lot simpler than "The Streets Run Red" but follows the same general storyline with similar characters.

Matt, Nick, Daniel

The Case

We start with a black screen and the film company logo is shown. We hear a door bell and the screen fades * in to a long shot of a corridor with a door at the end. It is night time and there is low lighting. We are in a house. A man in his 20s walks towards the door. He is wearing a shirt with rolled up sleeves and a black tie. He is scruffy and looks very tired. As the screen fades in the music starts (Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven)

[We fade from black into a slow track towards a door at the end of a corridor. We hear a door bell ring.]*

He opens the door and looks outside. We get a MCU of him looking around as nobody is there. He goes back into the house and we revert to the first shot as he closes the door. We then go to a close up of him putting on the chain. We change to a LS from the other side of corridor and watch him walk to the back room. Now inside the back room we get a match on action as he enters the room and pan across the room with him (MLS). He sits down at a desk which is lit only by a lamp. Match on action as it changes to a MS (HA) looking down on the desk. It is covered in papers; badly organised, showing that he is obviously stressed. He has a mug of coffee which shows us that he is tired, and we see a cork board up against the wall with evidence on it. A CU of the board shows us that he is working on a crime case, therefore telling the audience he is some sort of detective. We cut back to the MS and see him writing.

We now get a brief character building montage. We get a CU and track of him picking up his mug and taking a swig of coffee. We fade to a pan left across the desk from a Birds Eye View which is a MCU, this shows all the paperwork scattered around. We fade to a pan right which is horizontal view of the desk seeing a picture of the detective and his girlfriend and then onto the cork board where we see his hand enter frame and pin up a post-it note (currently illegible).

We cut back to the CU of the front door and the chain is now off. *

Now back in the room we look from beyond the table with a MS. We see the detective working still. His lamp starts to flicker and turns off. When it turns back on again we see him fiddling with the light bulb and if you look carefully in the door way there is now a tall dark figure standing there. The light goes off again and when it comes back on the man is now standing right behind him preparing to strike. The light goes off a third time and we hear a slam, when light returns we see the detective has had his head slammed into the desk and is unconscious/dead? The villain is making his exit out the room.

We now get a canted angle and a small zoom from MCU to CU, of the detective’s head on the desk. It cuts to a LA LS of the villain leaving through the back door. He walks down some steps and into the garden. Match on action to forward track following him power walking down the garden towards the back gate. (Take lots of different variations of this to cut between?). He reaches the gate and we cut to a (match on action) CU of his hand trying to unlock it. He shakes it a bit and grumbles in discontent.

We cut to a LS of the gate and do a montage of quick CU cuts of him hopping of the gate, starting with his hands on top of the gate, pushing himself up, foot on the gate, and then jumping over to a match on action on the other side as he lands.

We then get a MCU of him straightening his jacket at which point we see a rose pinned to it. We cut back to a black and white version of the pan in which we see the crime board. There is a sudden CU on the post it note which we can now read to be saying:

“Villain known to have rose as calling card”

Next to this is a Polaroid photo of a rose. We cut back to the MCU and he walks out of shot. Match on action to a VLS of him walking down the alley. As he is going down we cut to a CU of his hand pulling his tie loose and we can see him breathing heavily. Cut back to the VLS slightly canted angle this time and he continues past the camera, match on action to a LS from the corner as he stops and looks around. We get a MCU of him wiping his hands of sweat on his jacket. A CU where he reaches into his jacket and pulls out a packet of cigarettes. We cut to a long shot and he has a shadow cast against a wall as he searches for his lighter. We realise there is not one, but two shadows on the wall. We cut to a slightly low angle CU looking at the villain’s face for the first time as he brings up his lighter to light the cigarette. He lights the lighter and we see a gun appear in the shadows behind him.

The screen fades and the music comes to a sudden halt and there is a gun shot. The title logo fades and zooms into the screen.

END