“The Organ Lottery” and “The Cure” are exactly the same. [X
Number] of people waiting for something. The loglines lead me to
wonder how interesting a movie would be that is essentially about
people waiting for something to happen.
What I would say (in defence of both these ideas) is that just because they're waiting for something to happen doesn't take away from the drama. I think both have massive potential as we witness the build up to the announcement and then the fall out. What would you do if you got the cure but your wife didn't? How do people express fear, nervousness, relief? The same with The Organ Lottery. I apologise if I've sold them badly with the loglines, but they're just meant to be rough guidelines. Obviously once we know which avenue we're going down we'll iron out the finer details.
For this type of project the last sentence of “The Uterine Plague”
holds the most interest for me. However, the premise is “The
Children on Men” so it seems that comparisons would be made.
Yep we realised about The Children of Men connection and were duely concerned. This is one that I'm inclined to pass on, for that reason, to be honest.
“Survivors” seems like exactly the right idea for this kind of
project. No difference than “The Uterine Plague” really. Various
tales of surviving, desperation and hope with a different overall
reason.
Survivors originates from the earliest idea that we had and I think for that reason it's the obvious one to do. It's easy to get different strands and tie them together. The thing that makes me prefer The Organ Lottery or The Cure is that I think we have a chance to do something really, really good. It's possibly a slightly bigger gamble, but I'm inclined to roll the dice on this one.
I like “The Geriatrics” - not the title, but the logline. I don’t
see how this could lend itself to several different units around
the world but I see a lot of potential in that story.
I would like to take this moment to apologise to Mr.Murdock for underselling his logline with the glib title...
“Going Viral” is essentially the same as “The Uterine Plague” and
“Survivors” substituting one “issue” for the others. I have a
problem only with “regain control of the planet”. No one currently
has control over the planet so regaining that control by
individual groups all over the world doesn’t work for me.
My thought is if a unique “issue” can be worked out the premise of
“The Uterine Plague” and “Survivors” could work for this type of
movie.
What I would say is that they're all pretty much the same basic premise. Stripped down to the bare essentials the only differences are that in The Cure the world is on the brink of collapse, in Survivors, Going Viral and The Uterine Plague the world has collapsed and in The Organ Lottery and The Geriatrics only a specific group of people's worlds are collapsing.
All of these are 'end of the world' films in one way or another and that's because we kind of settled on that as the easiest way to unite a global premise.
As for coming up with a unique issue, I don't know. As has been pointed out at the top of this page there's nothing unique about the loglines that we've come up with, but they feel pretty unique. I think we could spend another month brainstorming and there would still be issues with originality. We've got to be thinking creatively and practically: what would we like to do and what can we do.
Personally I'm leaning towards the human drama elements of these stories for several reasons. Firstly I think that there will be quality control issues with the special effects. I know that I can't produce the same standard of zombie movie as someone who has experience with the genre. But on a human level? I think it evens the playing field. Secondly I think it subverts the expectations. If I was to see that an internet forum were teaming up to make a community film my first thought would be 'horror' and my second 'zombies'. I think it could potentially be an amazing selling point to come up with something that is unique to this type of project. And thirdly I think that we could end up with a touching and affecting film, possibly on a different level to your typical end of the world movie.
I don't want to sound like I'm justifying a pre-decision because I really want the maximum input from everyone here. If people have new ideas that we haven't discussed then it would be great to sound them out asap. I am by no means wedded to any particular idea and I don't think anyone else is either. I think the next step from here is a treatment/storyboard phase (potentially with more than one of the themes if no consensus can be reached) so that if people have a vision for how they'd do their thread then it can be properly transmitted.
But for now, thank you directorik and everyone else for the feedback!
