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Is my premise compelling?

B

Blondike

This is a 12 minute short film.

**Logline**: When a famous ballerina is forced to retire due to controversy, she now lives a life of anonymity working for a struggling ad agency but then faces the choice of revealing her identity when she must fill in for a dancer during a commercial shoot that could save her career.

Genre: Dramedy


**Summary**
The protagonist is a former famous ballerina at the Royal Ballet Company in London. She quit Ballet at 25 after she was accused of killing her dance rival. It reached the tabloids and the truth was covered up by the ballet world. Now working at a start up advertising agency under a different name, with a different look she tries her utmost not to draw attention to herself at risk of revealing her true identity. However, her anonymity has put her job security in the balance as the company is forced to make cuts and only the most valuable employees can survive.


The company is close to going bankrupt but there is one last chance to save the company. They have a huge commercial with a big name brand who want a commercial involving dance. The commercial shoot is thrown into disarray when the main dancer is injured. The company has gone way over budget and can't afford a reshoot so they need someone to fill in. If the protagonist doesn't decide to fill in, she loses her job and the company loses the job and mostly goes bust. If she does fill in, she will be revealing her identity, her dark secret and thrust right right back into limelight.

There is an underlying superhero theme to the film with her almost representing the trope of maligned super who must adjust normal working life to fit in or face scrutiny for being different. Many ballet dancers after retiring find it difficulty to adjust as the ballet world is such an insular environment that occupies the vast majority of their youth.
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I'm not too sold on her being a killer as of yet but I need the initial set up (her past) to connect with the pay off (commercial shoot)
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**what do you guys think overall?**

P.S it's loosely based on a woman who was a former top ballerina who decided to turn to the advertising world after she realised there needed to be life after ballet.
 
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I like the premise. But the murder (possible murder) aspect could create an investigation causing drama more powerful than the main storyline.

Perhaps a less dramatic past? Maybe she was forced to perform in a sex club or some hidden secret where someone comes across her past and tries to blackmail her.

Other ideas...

Her brother is a notorious gangster and she's hiding from people looking for him.

She owes a producer money after skipping out on a gig last minute. Or maybe the producer threatened to ruin her name in the industry for turning down his sexual advances.

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If you wanted to stay with the murder, she could have a good reason for either having done it, or for not coming forward sooner to clear her name.

I'm not against the murder so much, but 12 minutes isn't enough time to develop a story like that.
 
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loonatic45414 said:
I like the premise. But the murder (possible murder) aspect could create an investigation causing drama more powerful than the main storyline.

Perhaps a less dramatic past? Maybe she was forced to perform in a sex club or some hidden secret where someone comes across her past and tries to blackmail her.

Other ideas...

Her brother is a notorious gangster and she's hiding from people looking for him.

She owes a producer money after skipping out on a gig last minute. Or maybe the producer threatened to ruin her name in the industry for turning down his sexual advances.

Sent from my 0PJA2 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Yeah, the thing with murder is, I'd say I have around 1-2 minutes MAX (probably less) to establish what she did in the past (not fully) and then move forward with the storyline.

I feel for this to work..the audience most know she has a dark past from the beginning in order to make her actions and need for anonymity believable until the end.

I think what ever twist I go with has to be set up at the beginning with her past and pay off at the end with her revealing herself.

So the twist really isn't just her revealing herself because the audience should really except her to do so based on the info they have so far but the last shot / image showcases the full truth of the past and that is the twist. We know wonder how she is going to handle the exposure know we know the absolute truth.
 
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Interesting. I'd probably go with a much darker ending where she reveals the truth in a note that really leaves it up to the viewer to figure out.

Or maybe she vindicates herself to the love of her adoring fans while tripping backward on a cable and electrocutes herself in a bunch of lights, makes it to the hospital where she's barely conscious, while she struggles to talk, a nurse hangs a bag of poison and connects it to her IV just out of focus. The scene follows the nurse down a dark hallway, she lights up a cigarette, proceeds to cross the street in the rain and she's hit by a truck where the cigarette flies out of her hand and into a dry stairway covered by a tattered awning flapping in the wind (camera follows the cigarette). The driver gets out, picks up the cigarette and walks away smoking it.

Actually, with a 2 minute setup, that alone could be a 12 minute movie.
 
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