Making a short for the National Blood Donation Institution (NBDI) - Need help with ideas along the way

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

Making a short for National Blood Donation institution and thought I could use some help brainstorming with you guys here about the story and shooting. 

-In short the film is about a young man, gets a call from hospital whilst asleep, they ask him to get there as soon as possible as he's the only available donor with the blood type for a little girl Sarah. He says Okay, gets up and sits on bed, looks at left (pillow), then right (shoes) -a decision making gesture- then gets up, washes up, gets into shoes, goes down the stairs fast, off the building gate. It's late at dawn, look for a a taxi for a while, doesn't find any, then he looks left, and right, again as a decision making gesture, then he decides to run to the hospital. 

After an epic running scene at dawn, he arrives at reception, inform the receptionist, she takes him into a room, a doctor comes in, and draws blood (I will film a real blood donation process), then he rests on the hospital bed for a while, goes out of focus and sleep a bit. 

He wakes up tired and gets off the room, walking through the hallway he finds a window showing to little young girls (4-5) in separate beds, he asks a passing nurse, do you know how it went with Sarah? She says, oh yes she's okay it went great and she'll be recovering very soon. He looks and there's a happy looking family members next to her with toys and smiles, so he smiles, feels satisfied he saved the family's life. 

Then he looks at the other young lady, who's separated from Sarah by a curtain, he sees quietness, complete silence, and a doctor covers her face with a sheet and reads a Quran text (Local tradition implying death), 

He asks the nurse what about her? She answers: yes that Dalia, unfortunately we couldn't find her blood type and she passed away an hour ago due to inability to continue with a very simple operation, in fact same one as Sarah's. Tragic, her family is still uninformed and on their way home, they'll be devestated. 

He looks deeply at Dalia, changing emotion from a smile to complete numbness, scene ends. 

A telephone rings rings in a room, a young man picks up whilst asleep, he's informed they need him at the local hospital ASAP as they can't find any B+ type Donors for a young lady called Dalia, they ask him politely to come as soon as possible, he says okay. 

He sits down on bed, 

looks left at his woredrobe, looks right at his bed, 

he lies back on bed, image gets out of focus, then black. 

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So that's my story, the best I could come up with. I am NOT a writer, not a screenwriter, I don't write scripts, I don't do a thing regarding stories. I am a director and always been. 

So,

My first question: is there anything you might add or take out if you were to make the film?

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That's the first question, when we get through with the story I'll ask your help in actual cinematography and framing and shooting. 

[mercer]

I would crosscut between the two phone calls, the two options, you never know who is connected to who and then proceed with the climax of who was saved. Use the beating of his heart, when he's running to coincide with the ticking of a clock in the hospital. In fact, I probably wouldn't show Sarah until the end. Make the audience feel for and root for dalia. And then do the reveal that her donor never showed. Show Sarah, happy and healthy as dalia lies there dead, covered by a sheet. 

[mercer]

Remember, you're idea is technically a beat the clock thriller. 

[mercer]

Or... Streamline your idea and keep it simpler. When your hero weighs his options, he chooses sleep. We then learn about dahlia and her family, without the blood donation... She dies. At that point your hero awakens from a dream, looks at the clock and sees that only 5 minutes has passed. He gets up, gets dressed and runs to the hospital. His heart pounds. Cut to the hospital, the clock ticks, but it clicks backwards... As if it is ticking down. Finally he arrives at the hospital and donates the blood. Dahlia lives. The end. 

[mercer]

Or... Two possible donors are awoken, in the middle of the night. They both hang up the phone and look at their beautiful wives lying in bed, one chooses sleep, the other chooses donation. He gets up, gets dressed and goes outside into the night chill. There are no taxi's in sight, he runs. Use the heartbeat and ticking clock idea, until your donor arrives and donates. The girl lives, he goes home. His wife awaits him with a smile. They go back to bed. Time lapse the rising sun in the window, pull back and see we are now with the the guy who chose sleep. His wife isn't in bed with him anymore. He gets up, goes outside to get the paper... He gets hit by a truck. The only possible donor, already gave blood, he bleeds out and dies at the hospital. 

[fuzzynormal]

You got the idea. I'd tweak the structure.  This would be more work, but... think parallel editing and more intensity.  No dialog.  I'd even go straight up melodrama, over the top sort of stuff.

This technique will work good with creating short advertising length commercials.  Also, keep it non-linear.  So:  the scene of a lifesaving drama unfolding in a hospital intercut with the scene of the guy rushing to the hospital.  

Our main characters: "Hero Guy" and "Saved Patient."  Secondary characters:  "Similar Guy"  "Similar Patient." 

Start with CU of a blinking red light.  Sound of medical drama and intensity, cut to action and an emergency in the ER.  Lots of chaos and attempted lifesaving going on as doctors try to help "Saved Patient."  Meanwhile intercut with this "Hero Guy" wakes up receiving a phone call, we absolutely DON'T hear what it's about.  When he hangs up, he looks to his bed/wife, takes a deep breath and then makes the decision to leave.  His journey begins as you say.  Rushing, no taxi, etc.

We then see a similar guy pick up a phone in a similar way... Never sits up in bed though.  Doesn't even put the phone to his head, just looks at it.

At the ER, the chaos continues, instead of seeing one team of doctors and nurses working hard, we eventually see that it's two teams/doctors/nurses both working on serious injury victims.

Similar guy putting the phone back on the receiver.

Hero guy arrives, and as he does he passes a nurse who reaches frantically for a phone and starts dialing.  Our hero jumps into the chaos and docs start the transfusion process.  We see the other docs getting frantic and desperate.  The nurse on the phone places it back on the receiver and she returns joining the more desperate doctors.

Hero guy looks over to Desperate Patient girl.  He reaches out and holds her hand, the doctors lean back as they realize she's stabilizing.  Congratulations, smiles, slaps on the back and such.

Other Doctors have the opposite reaction, they loose their patient.  Sadness, clerics enter as doctors leave.  Crying parents in background.  Long beat.

Cut to shot of phone at "Similar Guys" home.  It sits unmoving in the foreground, dolly or tilt down to see red message light blinking.   We see "Similar Guy" roll over in bed, hold for a beat.

Cut to end-slate.

I like your initial idea.  Thats' my twist on it.

 

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

Mercer I take many of your thoughts. Really smart.

Fuzzy, I'll take MOST of you thoughts. That's brilliant! are you a screenwriter before a filmmaker? 

Thank you both, keep them coming. You'll be in the credits. Thanks a LOT.

[fuzzynormal]

Are you a screenwriter before a filmmaker?

​Thanks for liking the modified idea.  It's always fun to collaborate.

As for writing/filmmaking, I'm neither, really.  Got a broadcasting background.  My handful of film ideas never seemed to have reached orbit; don't really run in those circles. Got a few close, but ultimately it's the corporate work to pay the bills.  Still, storytelling is always interesting to me.  Always drawn to stuff with minimal dialog and more cinematic.

Good luck on whatever shakes out.  Hope you can pull off the more intense production and make a winner! 

BTW, off topic, but I just saw an indy doc from Egypt this morning.  Crazily low-fi and incredibly rough around the edges, (maybe shot on an iPhone?) but it had this inherent tragedy built into it and was quite compelling. Anyway, looks like that corner of the world has some cool cinema coming out of it, need to pay attention more... 

Cheers.

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

 

BTW, off topic, but I just saw an indy doc from Egypt this morning.  Crazily low-fi and incredibly rough around the edges, (maybe shot on an iPhone?) but it had this inherent tragedy built into it and was quite compelling. Anyway, looks like that corner of the world has some cool cinema coming out of it, need to pay attention more... 

Cheers.

The thread was started by the younger account user but let me weigh in:

Yes actually Egyptian Cinema is a very mature industry with deep infrastructure, starting from the 1890s, at one point and for decades it was neck to neck with hollywood cinema but somehow the political & religious (Islam) unrest that's inherently tied to this part of the world destroyed all forms of art. In fact, even under the current circumstances we produce top-notch cinema quality, I can show you many of my features that I humbly claim are up on the level on hollywood cinema in  story, acting, cinematohraphy, locations, sound, decoration, lighting, VFX, (will inbox if anybody wants to see, non translated sadly) and we're able to produce such high quality work mainly because it's cheap, the only real cost is the gear, otherwise actors are cheap, assistants are cheap, a cinematographer is cheap, a sound engineer, an VFX guy, the fees of everyone involved in any feature compared to a similar-level production anywhere else (USA/UK) is pennies. To give scale, if you hire an assistant for 300$ a day in the USA, here the same guy would be 50 EGP, meaning less than 10$! same with locations, actors, shooters, the human resources are so damn cheap which is a blessing to me as a producer and director but unfair to people who produce such quality work. Why is that? because we don't promote our work, it doesn't get translated and shown to foreign markets, this amazing power is entirely wasted for going to local cinema houses with a 1$ ticket price and not much sales, and that's why the crew is paid so low. 

My philosophy is to start promoting Egyptian cinema to the outer world, much like how bollywood does (which is a hugely inferior form of art than our films, I claim), as it saddens me seeing such low quality films getting hundreds of millions revenue in hollywood while our films that are of 100x higher quality and more enjoyable are getting thousands of dollars at maximum. I dream of starting a company just for the promotion of the Egyptian cinema work in the foreign markets. Everything shot here is fascinating to anyone who's not a local, if I took my rebel, went down the street now and took a few shots of the the atmosphere it'd blow your mind and you'd see it as very strong, harsh art that's not available any where else in the world. 

Off-topic yes. Go on if anyone has any advice for my son's upcoming short. Very appreciated. 

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

Say I may help you write the script. I can pull up celtx and help you out with a script. These are just pitches. You need a script writer. I sent you what my friend and I wrote. And I am now writing a book that I wish to turn into an epic movie. Honestly I'm first a director, second writer, third editor, fourth actor, fifth cinematographer, and sixth producer.

Can't answer the helping part (that's for the other user) but Yes I remember your script sent to me on E-mail, what a brilliant little piece. Very well thought out and the kind I like, with a twist in the end yet without a boring bulk leading just to the twist, it's all interesting and your writing in fact made me ''see'' the film, location, lighting, sound, somehow, how do you do that?