Initial Film Idea

After discussion in our group we have come up with an initial short film idea to work on in the coming months. The concept embraces the old-school film noir, gambling film, with our main character involved in a Texas Hold-em poker game in a private.  We plan to avoid the gangster stereotype and modernise the film, with his reasons for money being innocent to evoke sympathy.

He is an inexperienced gambler, holding Ace of spades and an eight of clubs, when the hand manifests itself the main character hits a pair of aces on the flop. Then the character states “I wasn’t always this lucky” and we will use an effect to signal a flashback to a time of bad luck in his life, possibly depicting him being beaten. The parallel narrative in flashbacks will combine with the card game when he is shot at the end.

We are then toying with the idea of attempting a stop-time effect using “After-effects” this would show the main character walking around whilst the others are stationary, the character could then look at everyone elses hands and in an abrupt return to reality state, “if only it was that 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 find out how to make a card game riveting opposed to stilted we will research films that successfully use tense, exciting card games such as “Rounders”, “21″, “The Cincinnati Kid”, “Dr.No” and in some cases how not to film a card game with “Casino Royale.”