Inital short film idea

As a group we have discussed and concluded a new concept for our film, which we believe will be a stronger idea than our initial music video. The new concept will embrace the old-school film noir, our main character will be involved in a private and dangerous cards game Texas Hold.  However, in our film we will aim to create reasoning to why our character is in the game to evoke symphony from the audience, and therefore will take the viewers on the side of the main character, willing him to win. We believe this would be effective as we would then be able to create tension and suspense, as there could be times when he could be on the back foot of a vital hand. Our concept is different to other films of this kind, as we aren't heading in the general direction of gangsters, and greed for money, as we feel that our idea will get more of a response from the audience.

Although the stakes for our character is high, he will be shown as an inexperienced gambler, who occasionally plays the game in his flat at home with his friends, but is then shown holding Ace of spades and an eight of clubs, as the hand begins to unfold, he will state the words 'i wasn't always this lucky' as it becomes evident that he will hit a pair of aces on the flop. As this occurs we will be interested in experimenting an effect to signal a flashback to a time of bad luck in his life, possibly depicting him being beaten. In doing this, we will try to parallel narrative the plot to combine the flashbacks with the card game when he is shot at the end.

We believe that it would be a really great idea if we could successfully attempt to use 'after effects', which would effectively stop time. if we could use this effect, it would allow the main character to move around the table as the other players of stationary, in order to cheat and look at their cards, in doing this the character would wish say 'if only it was this easy'.

As we see the rest of the hand unfold it reaches a dramatic climax with the river (last card) revealing a an eight of spades, creating the infamous “dead man’s hand” aces over eights (two-pair). His opponent most likely is winning until the last card to increase tension.

The  character stuffs a briefcase full of money and we see him exit with his winnings, as he moves towards the camera he reveals “you see I make my own luck” revealing two aces in his sleeve. Then an abrupt ending, the main character is shot from behind, cutting straight to black to conclude the short film. We still have to consider the aggressors motives but by the fact of having him reveal he was cheating the audience will believe that is the ending twist and his death will come as a surprise.

To create the best possible film, it will be vital and necessary to research blockbuster films with a similar plot to ours in order to find out how to make a card game exciting, the films that we will research would be the ones that have successfully use tense and gripping card games such as “Rounders”, “21″, “Dr.No” and “Casino Royale.”